Treasure Secretary Steve Mnuchin has always been a squishy little worm. I didn’t like it when Trump picked him and he hasn’t done anything that make me like him any better since. On Christmas Eve, Mnuchin crashed the stock market with his stupid “Plunge Protection Team.” Now there are rumors that Mnuchin, like Fed chair Powell may be next to be fired by Trump. It will make it more difficult for Mnuchin’s wife to dance around and pose with newly printed cash.
| Is Steve Mnuchin next on the chopping block? |
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Indeed, as Bloomberg wrote after the close, Trump’s frustration with Powell over the market’s performance “now may turn to his Treasury chief. One person familiar with the president’s thinking says that Trump has weighed dismissing Mnuchin, while another said that Mnuchin’s tenure may depend in part on how much markets continue to drop.”
After Mnuchin’s call, which produced no public statement, stocks continued their Christmas Eve slide, ending the day with the benchmark S&P 500 down 2.7 percent, hitting its lowest level in 20 months. The president will continue looking for a scapegoat. Now that he’s acknowledged that he can’t fire Powell, Trump’s target could become Mnuchin.
In a sign Trump may have lost some faith in Mnuchin, the president has asked whether one or more of his advisers could meet with Powell, according to a person familiar with the matter. That would be seen as undermining the authority of the Treasury chief, who sees Powell for lunch once a week and is normally the official designated to deliver the administration’s views.
“There are plenty of people inside the White House who are not fans of Mnuchin who are happy to throw him under the bus,” said Stephen Myrow, managing partner at Beacon Policy Advisors.
And just like that, the countdown to the next departure from Trump’s (formerly) closest circle begins.