U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen holds a news conference in the Cash Room at the U.S. Department of Treasury in Washington, U.S. July 28, 2022.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday denied an unconfirmed report that the President Joe Biden will replace her after the midterm elections in November, saying she plans to continue as head of the agency.
Yellen, who spoke during a board of directors interview during the Treasury Department’s annual Freedman Banking Forum in Washington, bluntly quashed speculation about her departure.
“There’s no truth to that,” Yellen told MSNBC moderator and host Jonathan Capehart.
Republicans have called for Yellen to resign or be fired since she admitted in an interview in June that she was wrong about the direction inflation was going. News store Axios then reported last month that the White House was quietly probing her replacement. An administration official is said to have told the news agency that the outcome of the midterm elections determines whether Yellen stays.
Fired Yellen could give Biden an opportunity to quell public concern about his economic policies, according to Axios. But Yellen has travel the country promote the bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the Science and CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act as key tenets of the economic recovery.
Yellen’s supposed departure would also cause political conflict if Republicans topple the Senate, thus complicating a smooth transition to confirming a successor.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last month that while the Biden administration is “carefully planning for potential transitions, post-midterm elections, both the State and the United States.” Chief Yellen or Brian Deese were not part of that plan.”
Brian Deese is the director of the White House’s National Economic Council.
Jean-Pierre also confirmed that Cecelia Rouse, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, will step down in 2023. Rouse shared the panel Tuesday with Yellen.
Requests for comment from the White House’s National Economic Council and the Council of Economic Advisers were unanswered at time of publication.
