Ahead of Warsh's Final Nomination Vote, Warren Urges Colleagues to Vote No on Trump's Fed Takeover

Ahead of Warsh's Final Nomination Vote, Warren Urges Colleagues to Vote No on Trump's Fed Takeover

Speech comes ahead of the tightest vote for Fed Chair in U.S. history

"Republicans will come to regret their decision to aid and abet President Trump's Fed takeover by installing Mr. Warsh as Chair."

Watch floor speech here (YouTube)

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, delivered a floor speech ahead of the final nomination vote for Kevin Warsh, President Trump's nominee to be Chair of the Federal Reserve.

Below are the Senator's remarks as delivered:

I urge my colleagues to vote no on Donald Trump's attempt to take over America's central bank.

Trump's economy is in big trouble. And, everybody knows it, including Donald Trump. Consumer sentiment is at an all time low. Families are paying more for groceries, more for housing, more for health care, all thanks to Trump's chaotic tariffs and his One Big Beautiful Bill. And now, his foolish and illegal war with Iran is further driving up the cost of gas and the cost of nearly everything else here at home.

So it's no wonder that Donald Trump is desperate to salvage the economy before November's midterm elections. Now, he could do that - instead of taking action to lower prices - which he could do - he has cooked up a ridiculous scheme: install sock puppets at the Federal Reserve Board who are willing to artificially juice the economy. Of course, it will be American families who pay the price when this scheme backfires and raises prices and the cost of borrowing even more.

Donad Trump has not been subtle about his takeover attempt. First, he opened a bogus criminal investigation into Fed Governor Lisa Cook and he illegally tried to fire her. Then, he opened another bogus criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jay Powell, all in a ploy to push him out.

Trump then proclaimed, quote, "anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman" and about a month later, he nominated Kevin Warsh to be his sock puppet on the Fed.

Consideration of Mr. Warsh's nomination was rightfully delayed by some of my Republican colleagues when they joined Democrats in refusing to move forward amid the Department of Justice's phony inquiry into Chair Powell. But the second that the Administration pretended to close the investigation, Republicans folded and advanced Mr. Warsh's nomination.

No one here is fooled. The investigation is still open. Don't take it from me. Take it from President Trump, who said the investigation is, quote, "not dropped."

Take it from the President's spokeswoman, who said, quote, "the investigation still continues."

Take it from U.S. Attorney Pirro, who said that she, quote, "will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation." And she went on to promise that her office would, quote,"continue to litigate the issue."

And no one should forget: President Trump is still trying to fire Fed Governor Cook - taking it all the way to the United States Supreme Court - and the Justice Department's reported criminal probe against her is ongoing.

So, it is clear that Donald Trump is still using bogus criminal investigations as a way to take over the Fed, to push out the people who've been confirmed, so that he can install his own people who will do exactly what he wants. So let me turn to Mr. Warsh, the nominee. At this unprecedented moment in the Fed's history, he is uniquely unqualified to lead the agency. And that is why every single Democrat on the Banking Committee voted against his nomination - the first party-line vote ever for a Fed Chair - ever in history.

First, Mr. Warsh has proven to be a sock puppet for President Trump. During his confirmation hearing, Warsh couldn't even say that Trump lost the 2020 election. We need a Fed chair who evaluates economic data and sets monetary policy in the real world, not in Trump's delusional alternative reality.

Second, Mr. Warsh has refused to disclose the sources of more than $100 million worth of assets. If confirmed, he will be the wealthiest Fed Chair in history. But he refuses to provide transparency to the American people about who he is entangled with. During his hearing, Mr. Warsh refused to say if he is invested in companies affiliated with President Trump or his family, companies that have facilitated money laundering, Chinese-controlled companies, or financing vehicles established by Jeffrey Epstein. We have no idea if Mr. Warsh owns stock in any banks which will be in direct violation of the Federal Reserve Act upon his swearing in later this week.

We also have no idea how and to whom Mr. Warsh will divest those secret assets. Based on the information we have pieced together, it is possible that Stanley Druckenmiller - who makes a living betting on what the Fed will do next - may cut Mr. Warsh a huge check to cash him out. The American people would be right to question who Mr. Warsh will serve if a billionaire gives him a sweetheart deal just as Mr. Warsh takes office.

Third, Warsh says he has, quote, "no regrets" from his catastrophic tenure as a Fed Governor before, during, and after the 2008 financial crash.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which Congress set up to investigate the causes of the financial crisis, found that Governor Warsh attended multiple meetings in 2006 in which participants rung the alarm about subprime mortgages and rising mortgages and rising foreclosures, and implored the Fed to use its authority to address these risks. Not only did Mr. Warsh ignore these warnings, he pushed back against them. In fact, in 2007, he said, quote, "subprime mortgages have gotten a bad name in this environment" and "in some cases that's not just." He also said later that he doesn't, quote, "see any immediate systemic risk issues" among the big banks. Remember, this is shortly before the crash of 2008. And then, for good measure, Mr. Warsh also praised risky financial instruments, like credit default swaps, that helped trigger the 2008 crash - and he said, no these are innovations that make the financial system safer.

So that's what he did before the crisis. During the crisis, Warsh served as Wall Street's personal liaison on the Fed Board. As eight million workers lost their jobs, 10 million people were being thrown out of their homes, and many more saw their life's savings vanish, Mr. Warsh's #1 priority? Not those families, not those workers. Mr. Warsh's #1 priority was the big banks that crashed our economy. He worked tirelessly to orchestrate multibillion dollar Wall Street bailouts.

But Mr. Warsh says today, he has, "no regrets."

After the crash, most people on the Fed saw the economic devastation and said - now might be a good time to lower interest rates to revive the economy and help get people back to work. Not Mr. Warsh. Nope. He wanted to keep interest rates high. No regrets.

And he kept pushing for higher interest rates for more than a decade, even as our economy struggled.

When the job of Fed Chair became available during Trump's first term as President, Donald Trump passed him by. Now Mr. Warsh chalked this up to his refusal to, quote, "put his ambitions ahead of his principles." Well, Mr. Warsh decided not to make that mistake the second time around.

As soon as Donald Trump became President a second time, Mr. Warsh began shouting from the rooftops that the Fed should cut interest rates. In exchange for abandoning his principles, the President offered Mr. Warsh his dream job.

Look, red lights are flashing all across our economy. American families are struggling. Republicans will come to regret their decision to aid and abet President Trump's Fed takeover by installing Mr. Warsh as Chair. I urge a No vote. Thank you Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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