Elizabeth Warren Outraged After CNBC Host Compares Her to Trump

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) laughed in disgust after CNBC host Sarah Eisen questioned how her being “outspoken” in her opinions on Federal Reserve policy differed from President Donald Trump’s demands on the bank.

The combative exchange came one day after Warren grilled the president’s Fed chair nominee Kevin Warsh on Tuesday as he testified before the Senate Banking Committee at his confirmation hearing. Trump is hoping that Warsh will succeed the central bank’s current chair Jerome Powell when his tenure ends in May.

Powell, who has frustrated Trump by defying his repeated calls to lower interest rates, is the subject of a Justice Department investigation launched in January into his congressional testimony over the Fed’s headquarters renovation which he has framed as an attempt to coerce him.

Speaking to CNBC on Wednesday, Eisen challenged Warren on her own record, comparing it to Trump’s before the stunned senator quickly drew a line.

“I mean, you yourself have been very outspoken on this show and otherwise on what the Fed should be doing. You also advocated for Lael Brainard and Janet Yellen, who you were aligned with on policy views,” the host said. “I mean, this isn’t that different, you know, with the president expressing what he wants in terms of policy and who he wants.”

“I’m sorry. Is that real?” Warren guffawed, audibly shocked and laughing. “[That] it is not different to just say, here’s my opinion, and here’s how I read the numbers, and here is who I think has a good track record?

She continued, pushing back on the premise: “You think that’s the same as being the president of the United States and employing the Department of Justice to bring criminal charges against someone? As sending someone a notice that they have been fired?”

She added: “Donald Trump is not expressing an opinion. Donald Trump trying to control the Fed. You know it and I know it, and what he’s also trying to do is to control the Fed by terrifying all of them.”

“Then why didn’t you ask Kevin Warsh about that?” the host cut in. “Why didn’t you ask Kevin Warsh about the criminal investigation against Chair Powell?”

“We did! We did, and do you know what he said?” Warren responded. “I asked him in my office. He said, ‘I’m not gonna comment on that because it’s an ongoing investigation.’ Now, I could have spent 45 seconds having him say the same thing again [during the hearing], but he told every one of us the same thing – ‘you’ll get no comment from me on that’ – because that’s what Kevin Warsh is doing, exactly what you’d expect a sock puppet to do!”

“Uncomfortable questions, he just says, ‘I’m not going to answer them. I will not answer them, and I have nothing, nothing that I can disagree, not a single fact that I could disagree with Donald Trump on,’” the senator went on.

“I gotta tell you, if the sock fits, and it sure does, for him,” she said.

Watch above via CNBC.

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