Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray “appointed the agency’s chief of staff, Leandra English, as the CFPB’s deputy director, establishing her as his successor when he steps down at the end of the day,” Politico reports.
“The move appears designed to thwart any move by President Donald Trump to name another temporary official to head the controversial agency… Trump will likely now have to nominate someone who must be confirmed by the Senate before he can oust English.”
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, who once called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “a sad, sick joke,” is being considered for a temporary role as interim director of the consumer watchdog after Richard Cordray steps down later this month, Bloomberg reports.
“Mulvaney would be expected to name someone else or a team of people to run the CFPB on a day-to-day-basis so he could keep his focus on OMB, said one of the people.”
“Richard Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said that he would leave the agency this month,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Cordray, a Democrat and a holdover from the Obama administration, was appointed to a five-year term that was to end in July 2018. He was widely expected to step down before then to run for governor in Ohio, his home state.”
“Jay Powell has been nominated to serve as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, as Donald Trump moves to make his mark on the world’s most powerful central bank,” the Financial Times reports.
“In choosing Mr Powell, the president has spurned calls for disruptive change from some Republicans in favor of stability at the U.S. central bank.”
Politico: “The former Goldman Sachs president, now Trump’s top economic adviser, was a front-runner for the Fed job until August, when he publicly broke with the president over his handling of fatal neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.”
“As recently as last month, the two still appeared at odds. Guests at a black-tie gala in Washington in mid-October honoring First Lady Melania Trump were treated to an awkward display between the two, as the president stared straight ahead and continued to make small talk with others while Cohn was trying talk to him, said an attendee.”
“Cohn is telling people he never really wanted the Fed job anyway. The Fed chairmanship, though immensely powerful, can be a dreary slog through endless meetings deciphering esoteric economic signals followed by tedious trips to the Hill to answer questions from grandstanding members of Congress.”
President Trump is expected to name Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, replacing Janet L. Yellen, the current chairwoman whose term expires early next year, the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Powell, a Fed governor since 2012, is a Republican with deep roots in the party’s establishment and in the financial industry. He has steadily supported the Fed’s current approach to monetary policy and financial regulation, creating an expectation that he would bring continuity to the role.”
President Trump says on Instagram video that he’ll announce his pick for Federal Reserve chair next week:
People are anxiously awaiting my decision as to who the next head of the Fed next week. I will be announcing it sometime next week. It will be a person who hopefully will do a fantastic job. I have somebody very specific in mind. I think everybody will be very impressed.
“President Trump delights in making spectacles out of personnel decisions. He conducted cabinet interviews at his New Jersey golf club, inviting members to gather and gawk. He summoned both finalists for a Supreme Court seat to the White House on the day of the announcement. And now he is conducting the most dramatic and drawn-out search for a Federal Reserve chairman in the long history of the stolid institution,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump is very publicly deliberating between two candidates with strikingly different views about the practice and purpose of monetary policy: Jerome H. Powell, a Fed governor who has voted in favor of every Fed policy decision since 2012, and John B. Taylor, a Stanford economist who is among the Fed’s most vocal critics.”
Politico: Trump leaning toward Powell for Fed chairman.
“Senate Republicans voted to strike down a sweeping new rule that would have allowed millions of Americans to band together in class-action lawsuits against financial institutions,” the New York Times reports.
“The overturning of the rule, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a 50-to-50 tie, will further loosen regulation of Wall Street as the Trump administration and Republicans move to roll back Obama-era policies enacted in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. By defeating the rule, Republicans are dismantling a major effort of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog created by Congress in the aftermath of the mortgage mess.”
President Trump “suggested that a soaring stock market might be ‘in a sense’ reducing the national debt, a statement that is not true, in any sense,” the New York Times reports.
Said Trump: “The country — we took it over and owed over $20 trillion. As you know the last eight years, they borrowed more than it did in the whole history of our country. So they borrowed more than $10 trillion, right? And yet, we picked up $5.2 trillion just in the stock market. Possibly picked up the whole thing in terms of the first nine months, in terms of value.”
He added: “So you could say, in one sense, we’re really increasing values. And maybe in a sense we’re reducing debt.”
President Trump casually told Fox News last night that the United States “would have to wipe out $75 billion in debt owed by Puerto Rico to bondholders around the world,” Politico reports.
“Wall Street promptly freaked out, sending Puerto Rican bonds into a tailspin and leading the White House to move swiftly to clean up Trump’s seemingly offhand remarks.”
“The White House has created a list of about a half-dozen candidates to be the next leader of the Federal Reserve, including its current chairwoman, Janet Yellen, and the president’s chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn,” the New York Times reports.
“The list also includes Jerome Powell, a member of the Fed’s board of governors; Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor; and the Stanford University economist John Taylor… Preliminary interviews with some candidates have already begun with an eye toward presenting finalists to President Trump later this year.”
Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen “offered a forceful defense of broad new banking regulations enacted after the 2008 financial crisis, saying the rules safeguard the economy against another crisis and rejecting assertions from President Trump and top aides that they should be rolled back,” the Washington Post reports.
Politico: “The Fed chief’s remarks are implicitly a pitch of how she would lead the central bank if President Trump chose to keep her at the helm of the Fed; the 71-year-old economist’s term as chair ends at the beginning of February.”
“It’s almost embarrassing being an American citizen… and listening to the stupid shit we have to deal with in this country.”
— J.P. Morgan CEO Jaime Dimon, quoted by CNBC.
President Trump “is increasingly unlikely to nominate Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen next year for a second term,” Politico reports.
“National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn is now the leading candidate to succeed Yellen as the world’s most important central banker… If Trump taps Cohn for the Fed, it could enrage economic nationalists in the White House and some staunchly conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill who don’t like the former Goldman Sachs president’s background as a Democrat who generally favors free trade.”
President Trump told Bloomberg that he is “actively considering breaking up giant Wall Street banks, giving a push to efforts to revive a Depression-era law separating consumer lending and investment banking.”
Said Trump: “I’m looking at that right now. There’s some people that want to go back to the old system, right? So we’re going to look at that.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Wonk Wire, Political Job Hunt and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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