(CBS, KYMA/KECY) – Representative French Hill (R-Ark.) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s possible firing.
According to Brennan, President Donald Trump said while the economy is in good shape, he says Powell is “doing a terrible job because he’s not lowering interest rates” while Kevin Hassett, National Economic Council Director, said “the White House is looking into whether the president has the authority to fire” Powell.
This prompted her to ask Rep. Hill if he believes Trump has the “power and authority to fire” Powell, to which he said:
“I don’t, and I believe President Trump has spoken about this several times over the past few years, including recently. Mr. Powell’s governorship, his chairmanship, is up next spring. The president has vacancies coming up on the Fed board, where he could name another governor. But look, just because Congress created the Fed and that we believe that it should be independent in the setting of monetary policy, it doesn’t mean that it’s immune from criticism. And every president since World War II has had choice words for the Fed chair when they’ve not been in sync with the direction of the president. So look, the Congress continues to do oversight. I set up a special task force to oversee the Fed’s decision making since the 2008 financial crisis. We have that investigation, review, and oversight underway, and we’ll continue it.”
During the interview, Brennan and Hill talked about Americans using crypto as assets.
The Senate passed a landmark piece of legislation to regulate crypto after a bumpy path through the upper chamber.
The bill, known as the GENIUS Act, would establish a regulatory framework for the $250 billion market for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency tied to the value of an asset like the U.S. dollar.
It passed the Senate in a 68 to 30 vote.
When asked if he is comfortable with people using crypto to pay for a down payment on a house, Hill said:
“look at Bitcoin, for example. One can now buy Bitcoin. It is a commodity. It’s been determined that it’s a commodity by the CFTC and the SEC. One can hold it in their brokerage account through an exchange-traded product, an ETF, ETP. It’s now an asset for millions of Americans, and it certainly could be treated like a stock or a bond or cash as a contribution to someone’s net worth to qualify for a mortgage. And if we pass Clarity this week, which I expect we will on a bipartisan basis, and we craft a dollar-backed stablecoin like GENIUS offered by Senator Hagerty, we’ll have the rules of the road. It won’t be a patina of consumer enforcement. It will be real consumer enforcement, investor protection both by the CFTC, the SEC, and the bank, and the bank regulators. Well, look again. Bitcoin is an asset. You can determine if you think it’s going to go up in value or down in value, just like stocks and bonds or other investments that people have on their financial statement to secure their financial statement for net worth purposes or to liquidate for a down payment. So, I think it’s a financial asset. Our bills will make it a more secure one, and one that’s better for, I think, all households and businesses.”
To watch more of Brennan’s interview with Hill, click here.
