Hassett says Trump would be free to offer opinions on Fed policy

(Bloomberg) — National Economic Council head Kevin Hassett said he’d consider President Donald Trump’s policy opinions if picked to lead the Federal Reserve, but that the central bank’s interest rate decisions would remain independent.

The president “has very strong and well-founded views about what we ought to do,” Hassett, Trump’s top economic adviser at the White House, said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation.

Most Read from Bloomberg

“But in the end, the job of the Fed is to be independent and to work with the group of people that are on the Board of Governors, the FOMC, to drive a group consensus on where interest rates should be,” he said.

Hassett was responding to questions about Trump’s comment Friday that he should be able to make recommendations on rates set by the Fed.

Trump and senior advisers have pressed Fed Chair Jay Powell to lower rates for months — while also weighing his choice to replace Powell, whose term at the helm of the Fed ends in May.

Hassett is seen as the frontrunner for the post, though Trump also met last week with former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh. The president named the two men as his top choices to the lead the Fed in a Wall Street Journal interview on Friday.

Hassett sought to suggest on Sunday that Trump is one of many experts that can fairly be consulted, even if he ultimately offers only advice.

Even as Fed chair, “I would be happy to talk with the president every day until both of us are dead because it’s so much fun to talk” with him, Hassett told CBS.

He rebuffed the notion that the president’s voice would have equal weight to voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee, however, saying the policymakers would be free to reject his opinion and “vote in a different way.”

“No, no, he would have no weight,” Hassett said. “It’s just, his opinion matters if it’s good, if it’s based on data.”

—With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy.