Kudlow downplays Moore’s past comments on women: He’s ‘a wiseass kind of guy’

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow on Wednesday downplayed likely Federal Reserve Board nominee Stephen Moore’s past comments about women

“We continue to back Stephen Moore,” Kudlow told reporters of President Trump’s pick for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board. “He’s in the process.”

{mosads}“I know of him. He’s kind of, you know, a great sense of humor. A wise-ass kind of guy,” Kudlow added. “What can I tell you? I don’t think it’s germane. I don’t think he was making a statement. I think he was making a spoof. Our support is still with him.” 

Trump first announced last month that he would tap Moore, a close political ally and former economic adviser to his presidential campaign, to a seat on the Federal Reserve’s seven-person board. Moore quickly drew scrutiny after news organizations uncovered several of his past comments that denigrated women. 

CNN this week resurfaced several columns from the 2000s in which Moore lamented the “feminization of basketball,” said women should not be allowed to referee men’s sports unless they are good-looking, and claimed women athletes were seeking “equal pay for inferior work.”

CNBC also uncovered other past comments in which he described his wife at the time, a stay-at-home mom, as a “loss leader” who “doesn’t have a job.”

The New York Times reported comments Tuesday in which Moore called college a place “for men to lose their boyhood innocence” and “do stupid things.”

“[T]he women seemed to survive just fine. If they were so oppressed and offended by drunken, lustful frat boys, why is it that on Friday nights they showed up in droves in tight skirts to the keg parties?” Moore wrote in 2000, according to the Times.

Moore has fought back against the resurfaced comments, saying Tuesday that critics are “pulling a Kavanaugh against me,” referring to sexual misconduct allegations that were levied against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh last year during his Senate confirmation process. The allegations sparked a wave of backlash against Kavanaugh, threatening to derail his nomination.

Kudlow said last week that President Trump still supports Moore, but added that the administration is interviewing candidates who could potentially replace him as Fed nominees.