Is it because Donald Trump is sniffing the White House that he is starting to become more establishment? A lot of his supporters may not want to concede this, but the Trump brand of being an outsider is gradually waning with each passing the day.
The latest example of this constant tergiversation is in regards to the Federal Reserve.
Speaking in a wide-ranging interview with Reuters, Trump revealed Wednesday that auditing the United States central bank is no longer a top priority of his. He added that Fed Chair Janet Yellen isn’t doing a bad job, which is contradictory to what he said over the last 12 months.
When it comes to auditing the Fed, an initiative pushed by former Texas Republican Congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul, Trump supports looking at the central bank’s books. Moreover, he favors keeping the Fed intact.
“I think number one, the Federal Reserve should be audited. You know, they’re not auditing it. And so far not too many people have been able to tell me why,” said Trump. “I’m not one that says we should get rid of the Federal Reserve because I think the Federal Reserve has an important function, but it should certainly be audited and … we should at least watch what they’re doing from the dollar standpoint.”
If Trump becomes president, should Americans expect an audit any time soon? Not really.
“It’s not my highest priority,” noted Trump. “I have other priorities like rebuild our military. It’s not my number one priority. But certainly it’s one of the things that we’ll be doing.”
At least he will replace Yellen, correct? Perhaps or perhaps not because he’s a low interest rate guy.
“I’m not a person that thinks Janet Yellen is doing a bad job. I happen to be a low interest rate person, unless inflation rears its ugly head, which could happen at some point. It doesn’t seem like it’s happening any time soon. I don’t think I want to at this point – I mean, number one, she’s got time left,” explained Trump.
“I would rather have a Republican in the position, but I am not the enemy of Janet Yellen. … Look, if interest rates were raised and if the dollar went up more, we’d be doing no business. We’re being killed by other countries devaluing their currencies.”
What’s very interesting about this interview is that he is now very tame about the Fed. If you look at his past comments about the central bank and about Yellen, you’d think that he’d want to rein in the Fed and oust Yellen for a more sound money person.
Late last year, he accused Yellen of being political about keeping interest rates low. Trump alleged that the Fed Chair is purposely keeping rates low to ensure the Democrats retain the White House in November (SEE: Donald Trump warns Federal Reserve rate hike will trigger a recession).
“This is a political thing, keeping these interest rates at this level,” Trump told a news outlet at the time. “Janet Yellen for political reasons is keeping interest rates so low that the next guy or person who takes over as president could have a real problem.”
At around the same time, Trump averred that a low-rate environment is good for businessmen such as himself, but warned that it’s creating a bubble. He also stated that it hurts the rest of the country (SEE: Donald Trump wants to audit the Federal Reserve, criticizes Ted Cruz for missing key vote).
“You know who gets hurt the most? People who practice the American dream and did what should have been the right way — the people that went through 40 years of their life and saved a hundred dollars every week [in the bank],” Trump said. “They worked all their lives to save and now what happens is they’re being forced into an inflated stock market and at some point they’ll get wiped out.”
Trump is certainly getting a whiff of the Oval Office so perhaps this is why he’s toning down his stances on important issues. Whatever the case, his supporters should be worried because he’s now acting like a typical Republican or Democratic politician.
Seems like he changed his stance on the Fed right after he had meetings with top republicans to get their support. Part of the deal was to back off the Fed. Disappointing.