Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren said on Monday that Donald Trump’s attempts to control the Federal Reserve “undermines America all around the world” as she laid out a path for the future of the Democratic party focused on economic policies.

In remarks at the National Press Club in Washington DC, the Massachusetts senator, who chairs the Senate banking committee, decried the US president’s latest attempt to weaken the central bank’s independence after the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into its chair, Jerome Powell.

About Trump, Warren said: “He’s saying, ‘I want to put my hands on the dials on monetary policy,’ and Jerome Powell and some of the Fed have resisted him and have said, very calmly, that they’re going to continue to look at the economic data and make decisions based on what the economic data says.

“What Trump is trying to do is terrible for our economy but it undermines America all around the world.”

Warren added: “The Fed has been the gold standard for [data-driven] monetary policy decision making and Donald Trump is just burning that to the ground and that’s going to be costly to the United States,” she added.

The speech from Warren, one of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, was focused on the “Future of the Democratic Party, Building a Big Tent Ahead of 2026 Midterm Elections.” She said that in order for the party – which suffered significant losses in 2024 and is still struggling to regain its footing – to build a “sturdy big tent, it is not enough to simply attack Trump”.

“A Democratic party that worries more about offending big donors than delivering for working people is a party that is doomed to fail – in 2026, 2028 and beyond,” she said. “Democrats need to earn trust – long-term, durable trust-across the electorate … even when that means taking on the wealthy and well-connected.”

She highlighted the importance of not tailoring policy to wealthy donors and instead focusing on lower costs for average American families.

“I understand the temptation – in this moment of national crisis – to sand down our edges to avoid offending anyone, especially the rich and powerful who might finance our candidates,” she said. “We can’t rebuild trust by staying silent about abuses of corporate power and tax fairness simply to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of the already-rich and powerful.”

She said that Democrats can learn something from Trump’s rhetoric. “Donald Trump stood up pretty much every day for a solid year and promised that on day one he would lower costs for American families.”

Instead, costs are up because of Trump administration policies, she said, “so this is the moment for Democrats to stand up and first call Trump to account for his betrayal to the American people but also to lay out our own agenda.”