Warren grills Trump Fed nominee on 2020 election, jobs data claims

Top Senate Banking Committee Democrat Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) tested Federal Reserve board nominee Stephen Miran’s loyalty to President Trump during his confirmation hearing Thursday, firing questions at him designed to show his lack of independence.

Warren asked him if he thought Trump lost the 2020 election.

Miran, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), sidestepped the question, conceding only that “Joe Biden was certified by Congress as the president of the United States.”

Warren then asked him if he thought the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) “faked” recent disappointing jobs numbers that Trump said were “rigged” to make him look bad.

Without providing any evidence of rigged data, Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer in response to the July jobs report, which had showed the economy adding a revised total of about 106,000 jobs over the previous three months, including 73,000 jobs in July and significantly downgrading the previous numbers for June and May.

Miran didn’t respond to the question of the authenticity of the BLS data, instead drawing attention to survey response rates that have diminished the quality of jobs reports for the last few years.

“The data have steadily deteriorated in quality,” Miran said.

As her final question, Warren asked whether prices were rising as a result of Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs.

“There has been no detectable increase in the aggregate price level as a result of tariffs,” Miran said.

Many economists have said that tariffs are beginning to show up in prices, which have been increasing over the past few months, while others have noted that companies may be using the tariffs as an excuse to raise prices independently of their cost and profit margin effects.

Miran is expected to be easily confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate to the remainder of former Fed board of governors member Adriana Kugler’s term, which has just more than four months remaining.

Trump is considering appointing Miran to a longer-term Fed board position. Terms are 14 years long, a duration that is meant to insulate them from political pressures.

“We just put a very good man in one position,” Trump said last week, apparently referring to Miran. “We might switch him to the other — it’s a longer term — and pick somebody else.”