‘It Will Crash the Markets’: Elizabeth Warren Gives Dire Warning About Trump Firing Fed Chair

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sounded the alarm on Thursday as President Donald Trump threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Legal experts have said that because the Fed is an independent body, the president cannot fire its chair. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from removing members of other independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.

On Wednesday, Powell reasserted the Fed’s independence, stating it’s “a matter of law.”

“Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump posted on Thursday. Hours later in the Oval Office, the president said Powell would leave if Trump told him to.

Warren appeared on Thursday’s Squawk on the Street on CNBC and said flatly that Trump cannot legally fire Powell, but added a caveat.

“But this is a president who has shown himself willing to violate laws,” she said. “So, that obviously puts things a little more in play than we ever would have guessed. But I really want to make a pitch here for a second about the importance of Powell staying in his job… I have tangled with him on a regular basis about both regulations and interest rates. But understand this. If Chairman Powell can be fired by the president of the United States, it will crash the markets in the United States. The infrastructure that keeps this stock market strong and therefore a big part of our economy strong, and therefore a big part of the world economy strong, is the idea that the big pieces move independent of the politics, that somebody is making his, their, her best decisions economically and independently.”

The senator went on to add that if Trump does fire the Federal Reserve chairman, the U.S. will be like “any other two-bit dictatorship” subject to the whims of an autocrat.

Watch above via CNBC.