The Fed hopeful’s controversial comments....

Stephen Moore in peril: ‘I don’t imagine he can get the votes’

The Fed hopeful’s controversial comments are costing him support from Senate Republicans.

By BURGESS EVERETT and VICTORIA GUIDA

He’s called a GOP senator’s hometown one of the “armpits of America.” He’s suggested women, who make up a quarter of the Senate, shouldn’t be allowed to referee or generally participate in men’s sporting events. And during a 2004 Senate race, he attacked a second Republican senator for his insufficiently conservative voting record.

And all of it is starting to weigh down economics commentator Stephen Moore’s chances of getting confirmed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. On Tuesday, it appeared the wheels were beginning to come off his nomination as more than a half-dozen GOP senators publicly began raising concerns.

“These stories that have come out recently will be a good test about what the support level is up here," said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), the party’s chief vote-counter, on Tuesday. “If you have Joni [Ernst] and other members of our conference … as affected by some of these stories as she was, we’ll get a sense of that pretty quickly.”

“It’s going to be a problematic nomination. I actually like Stephen Moore but there’s some things out there that are going to make it hard," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close Trump ally. Whether he proceeds "will be up to the president. He needs to start talking to members of the Senate. There are a lot of people that have concerns about some of the issues. It’d be tough” to confirm him.

Ernst (R-Iowa), another member of GOP leadership, described herself as “unenthused” by the nomination on Monday, and many other GOP senators remain noncommittal. Moore likely needs to get 50 of the 53 GOP senators' votes to be confirmed, with Democrats signaling partywide opposition.

A Republican senator familiar with party dynamics had a blunt assessment of Moore’s current predicament: “I don’t imagine he can get the votes.”

Senate Republicans discussed concerns about Moore's nomination at a party lunch on Tuesday, according to an attendee, who believed the White House was unlikely to formally nominate him.

The hurdles to confirmation are piling up. A number of past comments and articles by Moore have come out in recent weeks that have hurt his appeal, including when he disparaged Sen. Rob Portman’s hometown of Cincinnati and panned women as referees.

Portman said “obviously” he didn’t agree with Moore’s past statements. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said she also has “concerns” about his nomination.

Moore had to pay a $75,000 lien on back taxes, which raised eyebrows among Senate Republicans. He also ran the conservative Club for Growth and there are concerns he’d bring a partisan sheen to the Federal Reserve.

Summing up Moore’s issues, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said it “appears that he has a lot of personal financial issues as well as troubling writings about women and our role in society and sports and also how he views the Federal Reserve.” Collins, like several other senators, said she would refrain from opining about his confirmation prospects until his nomination is official.

“I’m concerned with regard to child support and tax payments but the greater issue relating to all these is their economics relative to their partisan credentials," said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who began the GOP revolt that spiked Herman Cain's nomination. Romney said he was still reviewing Moore.

Moore has been defiant — just as Cain was until it became clear he couldn't be confirmed. Moore has been defending himself on TV and decrying the attacks on his possible nomination as a smear campaign. But the White House is now reviewing his writings and vetting him further before he’s formally nominated.

“I think I’m going to be on the Fed. By the way, the President and the White House economics team’s totally behind me,” Moore said Tuesday on CNBC.

Many Republican senators acknowledged that Moore is facing pushback within the caucus.

“Stephen Moore has a sense of humor, so we’re trying to contextualize them and see how much of those were meant in seriousness,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters. Still, he conceded, “They’re probably bad context for somebody who is going to be subject to a confirmation at some point.”

Moore is also on record attacking Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) in a 2004 primary race against Herman Cain, who pulled the plug on his own nomination last week. Isakson said Tuesday morning he’d make a statement on Moore later this week.

“These stories are obviously going to have some impacts, not just on some our women members, but on everybody generally,” Thune said. “He’s going to have answer those questions.”

Moore is an unorthodox pick for the central bank, having called for interest rates to be tied to commodity prices and even suggesting there should be a discussion of whether the Fed needs to exist.

Multiple times in recent years, he has advocated for returning to a gold standard, which would tie the value of the dollar to the supply of the precious metal, an idea rejected by most mainstream economists. He has since distanced himself from that position. The conservative commentator has also maintained that the U.S. economy is experiencing deflation, though the Consumer Price Index indicates the opposite, putting the inflation rate at just under 2 percent.

“The president stands behind him and Stephen said ... if he feels likes he’s a liability then he’ll pull his name out of contention, but for now he, Stephen, feels comfortable,” White House Counsel Kellyanne Conway told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.

“I am [a] strong successful woman who has worked with Stephen Moore for decades and I know how he feels about women,” Conway added.

For now, Republicans do not view Moore as objectionable as they did Cain. But that doesn’t mean they are exactly pushing for him to move forward either.

"If he is nominated, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,“ said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Moore has, indeed, said he would bow out if it would cost Republicans seats in the Senate. Ernst, Tillis and Collins as well as GOP senators like Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha McSally of Arizona are up for reelection in swing states next year. At least two of them would have to support Moore for him to win confirmation.

Gardner is still open to Moore’s nomination.

“I look forward to talking to Stephen Moore and having a discussion on his ability and background and suitability,” Gardner said in an interview. “I think I had concerns about Herman Cain from a political side of things, from the super PAC side of things, that I don’t have with Stephen Moore.”