Former President Donald Trump, speaking Tuesday to the Economic Club of Chicago in a sometimes debate-like interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait, insisted that a president has the right to make input into the decisions made by the Federal Reserve, traditionally an independent entity.
"If you are a very good president with good sense, you should be able to at least talk about the interest rates," Trump said at the event. "I think I have the right to say, as a very good businessman, somebody that has used a lot of sense, I think I have the right to say that I think I am better than [Chair Jerome Powell] would be," said Trump.
"I think I am better than most people would be in that position," he added, stressing that if elected, he would not be the one making the decisions for the Federal Reserve.
Still, Trump said, "I think I have the right to say I think [interest rates] should go up or down a little bit."
His comments Tuesday came after criticism from his Democrat challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris, after talk around his campaign has ranged from firing Powell to the president getting to have a "say" in setting interest rates.
Harris said in August that she does not agree with Trump's opinion on the Fed, and said that it is an "independent entity, and as president, I would never interfere in the decisions that the Fed makes," reported Yahoo News.
"I think it is the greatest job in government," Trump said of Powell on Tuesday. "You show up to the office once a month and say, Let's see, flip a coin and everybody talks about you like a god … I used to walk into my office and he was begging."
Trump had talked about removing Powell because "he was keeping rates too high," but on Tuesday said, "He actually dropped them too much."
"I was threatening to terminate him," said Trump. "There was a question as to whether or not you could."
Meanwhile, Trump, when asked if he would come up with a list of contenders to head the Fed, like he did with the Supreme Court, he pointed out that he got three justices confirmed.
Trump, in other matters, was also asked if he thinks Google should be broken up for monopoly reasons.
"Google has a lot of power," he said. "They are bad to me, very bad to me. I can speak to that standpoint … I called the head of Google the other day. I said, 'I am getting a lot of good stories lately. But you don't find them in Google.' I think it is rigged. I think Google is rigged like our government is rigged."
But at the same time, the United States does not want another country like China to have powerful companies like Google, said Trump.
"China is afraid of Google. China is a very powerful, very smart group of people," he said. "I can tell you that from a very personal experience."
Trump also discussed reports from the Congressional Budget Office that immigrants will add $9 trillion to the United States' GDP over the next 10 years, after he was asked if his call to deport illegal immigrants will hurt the economy.
"Simple answer. I want a lot of people to come into our country but I want them to come legally," said Trump, noting the criminals that have come into the United States.
"They came from prisons and jails," he said. "They came from mental institutions and insane asylums. A large number of terrorists came in. When I was the president, we had the strongest border in the history of our country … now we have the worst numbers."
The immigrants who come in, he added, should love the United States and obey its laws.
"We are going to get people in here rapidly," Trump said. "They're going to be people who want to be in here. They are going to be people who can love our country and won't kill people because they don't like the way they look."