The Fed shouldn't actually get political, says former New York fed chair who wrote it should

Bill Dudley.
(Image credit: VICTORIA JONES/AFP/Getty Images)

Former New York Federal Reserve Chair Bill Dudley's Bloomberg op-ed didn't get the reception he was hoping for.

In an opinion article published last week, Dudley argued that the Fed needed to "stop enabling" President Trump and his "economic disaster in the making," and was promptly slammed by both sides of the aisle. So Dudley provided a follow-up Q&A on Wednesday to clarify why he told the Fed to get political — or rather to claim that he didn't do so in the first place.

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That still sounds fairly political, or at least like an explicit shot against the president. But Dudley expanded Wednesday by saying he doesn't think the Fed should get involved in the 2020 election, at least not explicitly. "What the Fed does or doesn't do can influence electoral outcomes," but it shouldn't be "motivated by political outcomes," Dudley wrote. After all, it's Trump that has "politicized the central bank," not the Fed itself, Dudley finished.

Find Dudley's original op-ed at Bloomberg, and his clarifying Q&A here.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.