Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) compared Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell to Dr. Anthony Fauci in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: I think the question that people have had is seeing the president there, you know, this typically has been this independent line between the administration and the Federal Reserve. Do you think that that is important for the Federal Reserve to have independence? SEN. BERNIE MORENO (R-OH): Oh, of course. And we’re not talking about that. What we’re talking about is, is this guy competent? Now, the reason it’s now in our consciousness about this renovation is because we had him in front of our Banking Committee hearing, and he lied. He said the building did not have a VIP elevator and dining rooms and beehives and waterfalls. All that is just objectively not true. So again, either he lied before our banking committee, which, by the way, is a felony, or he’s just grossly incompetent. I fall more in the second one, given his track record, losing hundreds of billions of dollars, not managing the U.S. economy properly. Also, by the way, in that same hearing, says it’s a good idea to forgive student debt. Imagine the head of the Federal Reserve, our central bank, telling our policymakers that we should forgive debt. That’s insanity. So this is a guy who’s hyper-partisan. And as a result of his hyper-partisanship, he’s costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars. COLLINS: But then why did Trump pick him to be the chair of the Federal Reserve? MORENO: Look, I’ve employed 1,100 people in my life. Out of 1,100 people, I made some bad hires. You recover quickly. President Trump, in my opinion, got some bad advice from somebody. He put him in place. Of course, now he was in there. And now he’s back. His term is up in May. I asked Jay Powell in my office, when your term is up in May, are you going to do what every other Fed chair did and leave the Federal Reserve? He said, only if he doesn’t feel the institution is at risk. The height of arrogance and ego to make that kind of statement is pretty shocking. He should leave now. COLLINS: Why not? Should the president fire him? MORENO: I believe he should leave. It would just be a lot easier if he just said, hey, I resigned. It would make the country better. It would make the Federal Reserve better. COLLINS: But if he doesn’t, he doesn’t do that. MORENO: Well, the president certainly, in my opinion, has all the rights to do it. In a Supreme Court case called Humphrey’s, you can look it up, there’s a term called inefficiency, which basically means incompetence. And if that standard doesn’t apply to Jay Powell, it doesn’t apply to anybody. He’s the Anthony Fauci of the financial system in this country. COLLINS: OK, but Trump also kept Anthony Fauci on and gave him a medal.

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