Reason No. 1 he should Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell should be fired: He’s far from independent.
In July 1988, Mike Dukakis was leading the presidential race versus George H.W. Bush — but not for long.
A little later that summer, the Democratic nominee agreed to do a photo-op in a battle tank with an army helmet perched awkwardly on his head.
GOP spin masters capitalized with the now infamous “tank ad” that lost Dukakis the election — and rightfully so.
The public agreed that a pointy-headed dork who tried to pass himself off as a tough guy shouldn’t be anywhere near the US presidency.
That’s how I felt Thursday, watching the odd spectacle of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell donning an ill-fitting helmet as he and President Trump toured the Fed’s new unfinished and overindulgent $2.5 billion “Taj Mahal” headquarters.
Yes, Trump wants Powell out mainly because the Fed boss refuses to lower interest rates and juice the economy.
But let’s pause a moment to contemplate the construction-site fiasco. Trump chose to tour the facility because he wanted to make Powell look like a fool.
And it worked. Like Powell, Trump, too, was wearing a helmet, but the president looked pretty comfortable as his hulking frame towered over the central banker’s. Recall that Trump is a real estate developer.
Powell, meanwhile, looked like an economist who had just landed on Mars. He stood by nervously as Trump took some shots at the project’s well-publicized cost overruns.
Powell did manage to point out that the president had mistakenly added a few hundred million dollars to the actual total, but the actual total was outrageous nonetheless.
