Months before he died, Volcker ripped into Trump and ‘nihilistic forces’ undermining confidence in the US

In the essay he wrote in September, Volcker addressed Trump’s repeated criticism of the Fed. The president has demanded the central bank lower rates and has called officials there “boneheads” and said Chairman Jerome Powell was “clueless.”

“Not since just after the second world war have we seen a president so openly seek to dictate policy to the Fed,” Volcker wrote. “That is a matter of great concern, given that the central bank is one of our key governmental institutions, carefully designed to be free of purely partisan attacks.”

Volcker added that confidence in the U.S. is “under siege.”

“Seventy-five years ago, Americans rose to the challenge of vanquishing tyranny overseas. We joined with our allies, keenly recognizing the need to defend and sustain our hard-won democratic freedoms,” he said. “Today’s generation faces a different, but equally existential, test. How we respond will determine the future of our own democracy and, ultimately, of the planet itself.”

The concerns are similar to those he expressed a year ago in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times and CNBC, during which he said the U.S. was in “a hell of a mess” because “nobody believes in the leadership of the country.”

CNBC has reached out to the White House for comment.

WATCH: Volcker participates in discussion of whether Fed is too politicized

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/11/paul-volcker-ripped-into-trump-and-nihilistic-forces-undermining-us.html