Conservative economist Stephen Moore said he wished there were a statute of limitations on stupidity, during a Thursday evening episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” He made his comments in relation to the comments he made that caused Democrats and Republicans to oppose his confirmation to the board of the Federal Reserve.
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“Let me just say, I am bummed out today because I hate quitting,” Moore began. “I’m not a quitter, so I’m sad about that. And people, by the way, in airports, at restaurants and they come up to me and they were so great to me about ‘Don’t let these jackals get you.’ What surprised me, Tucker, and look, I’m not playing the victim here because the truth is, I have a two-mile long paper trail, I’ve given 500 speeches and written a lot of articles and I have said things that are impolitic.” (RELATED: Trump Fed Pick Stephen Moore Responds To ‘Character Assassination’ By CNN)
“I’m not saying that everything I have said, you know, some of the things I’ve said are stupid and I wish there was a statute of limitations on stupidity, because some of these things were 20, 25 years old,” he continued.
The economist then went on to discuss why he was excited about the possibility of serving as a board member of the Federal Reserve Bank.
“I was excited about this because when Trump asked me to do something, I said this is great. I will have the ability to talk about the economy and the amazing things we can do if I’m at the Fed, and it never even came up,” he concluded. “The Left understood from the first couple of days because they did surveys with the senators, a lot of them loved my economic views and that is when they launched this character assassination. The most amazing thing, ‘The Washington Post,’ ‘New York Times,’ they got my divorce settlement from 10 years ago unsealed so they could just put all of this dirt on me that had nothing to do with my qualifications to be on the Fed.”
President Donald Trump announced in April that he was considering nominating Moore to the board of the Federal Reserve. The announcement didn’t focus on Moore at first, because of the fact that the president’s other nominee, Herman Cain, took up the spotlight. Cain reportedly asked the president not to continue with the nomination process after considerable pushback from the left.
“My friend Herman Cain, a truly wonderful man, has asked me not to nominate him for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “I will respect his wishes. Herman is a great American who truly loves our Country!”
Moore formally withdrew his name from consideration Thursday, another announcement that came through the president’s Twitter account.
“Steve Moore, a great pro-growth economist and a truly fine person, has decided to withdraw from the Fed process,” Trump tweeted. “Steve won the battle of ideas including Tax Cuts and deregulation which have proceeded non-inflationary prosperity for all Americans.”
The announcement came after Moore wrote a letter to the president asking to be dropped from consideration.
“Your confidence in me makes what I am about to say much harder. I am respectfully asking that you withdraw my name from consideration. The unrelenting attacks on my character have become untenable for me and my family and three more months of this would be too hard on us,” he wrote in the letter.
