Paul Volcker knocked Trump in essay written before his death

Paul Volcker, who served as Federal Reserve chairman under Presidents Carter and Reagan, knocked President Trump in an essay written about three months before his death.

Volcker, who died Sunday at 92, hit the president for attacking the Federal Reserve, according to a planned afterword to the paperback edition of his autobiography, originally released in October 2018.

“When I was writing my book, I observed that President Donald Trump had not attacked the independent US Federal Reserve, for which I was grateful,” he wrote in the essay published by the Financial Times. “To say that is no longer true would be an understatement. Not since just after the second world war have we seen a president so openly seek to dictate policy to the Fed.”

The former chairman warned that the Federal Reserve should be “free of partisan attacks,” and the country as a whole has been “facing deep-seated political, economic, and cultural challenges” in modern times. He cautioned that confidence in the U.S. is “under siege.”

“Today, threats facing that model have grown more ominous, and our ability to withstand them feels less certain,” Volcker wrote. “Increasingly, by design or not, there appears to be a movement to undermine Americans’ faith in our government and its policies and institutions.”

Trump has taken aim at Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, criticizing him frequently for not cutting interest rates more aggressively. 

The Fed has cut interest rates three times this year, but is expected to hold them at the end of its meeting on Wednesday while signaling that rates will remain on hold for the time being.