Larry Kudlow insisted Herman Cain and Stephen Moore are worthy and brushed off questions about their qualifications

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Donald Trump’s controversial picks for the board of the Federal Reserve are “very smart people” worthy of the honour, a senior economic adviser insisted on Sunday while brushing off questions about the two men’s qualifications and past behaviour.

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To consternation among political opponents of the president and those who monitor the US economy, Trump has floated the former Godfather’s pizza chief executive Herman Cain and the economic commentator Stephen Moore for the board of the most powerful central bank in the world. Their installation would give the president two loyalist voices on the board of an institution with which he has consistently clashed.

Cain ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 but withdrew after at least four women accused him of sexual harassment. He denies all the allegations but has admitted “some sort of settlements” were made.

Outlets including the Guardian have reported that the US government says Moore, who advised the Trump campaign in 2016, owes $75,000 in taxes and was held in contempt for more than $300,000 in missed payments to his wife after they divorced. Moore denies the reports about his tax and has called reporting on details from court filings regarding his divorce, including allegations about his treatment of his ex-wife, “vile and vicious and underhanded”.

This week, citing Guardian reporting, the Democratic senators Sherrod Brown and Ron Wyden asked Moore to provide detailed financial information.

On Sunday Larry Kudlow, director of Trump’s National Economic Council, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union.

“First of all,” he said, “they’re both very smart people. Second of all, let’s take Mr Herman Cain.

“Besides being a very successful entrepreneur and businessman, he was a board member of the Kansas City Fed and actually was the chairman of the board. His time there spans I think about a decade. He’s intimately acquainted with Federal Reserve operations and policy decisions so I think these criticisms [of his qualifications] are very unfair.”

In fact, Cain was a director of the Kansas City Fed for four years, between 1992 and 1996. He was chairman in his last two years on the board.

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The acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, also voiced support for Cain, in an appearance on Fox News Sunday in which he also said Democrats would “never” get to see Trump’s tax returns.

“I think Herman would be a great member of the Fed,” Mulvaney said.

Kudlow fended off questions about Cain’s past support for policies outside the mainstream of US economic thought, and said Trump “has every right to put people on the Federal Reserve board with a different point of view” from the current leadership.

Trump has persistently criticised the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, demanding cuts to interest rates which he said this week would make the US economy take off like “a rocket ship”.

“Potus is very well informed,” Kudlow said. “He’s a successful investor, he’s a successful businessman. He wants people on the Fed who share his philosophy. This is not a political issue, it’s an issue of how do you see the world.”

Trump is a billionaire real-estate magnate but has declared bankruptcy six times. He has also been accused of sexual assault and misconduct by more than 20 women. He denies all the allegations.

One of Cain’s accusers, Sharon Bialek, alleges that in 1997 he attempted to touch her genitals and brought her head towards his crotch, then when she protested said: ‘You want a job, right?’”

This week, Bialek told the Washington Post she did not wish Cain “anything ill, but I don’t think he should be awarded this position. Instead of being punished, Trump is rewarding him.”

Asked about such claims, Kudlow said there was a vetting process and added: “There’s big disputes here. Mr Cain disagrees with this point of view. I’m not going to litigate that here.”

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He also said the political atmosphere in Washington was “very toxic” and seemed to cast doubt on claims against Cain by comparing them to allegations against Brett Kavanaugh that the judge denied and which did not derail his progress to the supreme court as Trump’s second pick.

“Look,” Kudlow said, “whether it’s supreme court justices or many other things, we’ve seen a lot of charges here that don’t necessarily pan out.”

Like Kavanaugh, Cain and Moore would need to be confirmed by the Senate. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in that chamber, making Trump’s putative Fed picks vulnerable to defections.

Kudlow was not challenged about reports on Moore’s divorce or tax affairs, instead being played a tape of the economist telling Bloomberg TV he was “kinda new to this game, frankly, so I’m going to be on a steep learning curve myself about how the Fed operates and how the Federal Reserve makes its decisions”.

“He’s qualified,” Kudlow insisted. “He’s a smart guy, a really smart guy. There’s nothing wrong with a little modesty, a little humility, you learn the ropes … I think Stephen’s being very humble about this.”

Kudlow concluded the discussion, however, with a potentially telling caveat.

“The president stands behind both of these gentlemen,” he said, “right now.”