Robert Armstrong

Right.

Where if you brought the cost of mortgages down, houses would get cheaper.

So that would actually be anti-inflationary.

So he says these kinds of things.

You can understand why the president would be interested in at least talking to him.

He has also said on at least one occasion that.

that maybe the Fed should, or suggest, I emphasize the word suggest here, he suggested that maybe the Fed should help the Treasury control interest costs.

Maybe he was misconstrued.

That is a left-fieldy idea.

I'm not sure if he really meant that or whatever, but it's out there.

And so I think he is a guy who might naturally appeal to the president.

I mean, it's clear what the president is afraid of, right?

Which is that he'll appoint somebody who will give him a lot of sweet talk in the appointment process and then turn out to be his own person or her own person.

Yes.

Which is, of course, the whole point of the structure of the Fed chair's job.

And my sense of Rick Reeder is that...

He's a market vet who's going to have his own views.

And I wonder if Trump might not get that sense from him too and back off.

Right.

He's a really serious person.