Paul Volcker, who was 92 when he died in New York City on Sunday, December 8, was an economic policy adviser under both Democratic and Republican presidents. The New Jersey native served as chairman of the Federal Reserve under President Jimmy Carter from 1979-1981 and President Ronald Reagan from 1981-1987 and headed the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Barack Obama from 2009-2011. But one U.S. president Volcker was not fond of was Donald Trump, and CNBC’s Jeff Cox reports that three months before he died, Volcker wrote a “scathing critique” of Trumpism.
“Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government,” Cox notes, comes at the end of a paperback release of Volcker’s autography — and in that afterword, the one-time Fed chair expresses very negative views on Trump’s policies. Volcker writes, “Nihilistic forces are dismantling policies to protect our air, water and climate. And they seek to discredit the pillars of our democracy: voting rights and fair elections, the rule of law, the free press, the separation of powers, the belief in science, and the concept of truth itself.”
Volcker was also quite critical of Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve.