Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticized Republican rival Donald Trump on Tuesday for making comments about Federal Reserve policies, which she said should be off-limits for U.S. presidents and presidential candidates.
“You should not be commenting on Fed actions when you are either running for president or you are president,” Clinton told reporters on her campaign plane. “Words have consequences. Words move markets. Words can be misinterpreted.”
Trump, who has previously accused the U.S. central bank of keeping interest rates low to help Democratic President Barack Obama, said on Monday that the Fed has created a “false economy” and that interest rates should change.
“They’re keeping the rates down so that everything else doesn’t go down,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s request to address a potential rate hike by the Federal Reserve in September. “We have a very false economy.”
Clinton criticized the New York real estate magnate for the comments.
“He should not be trying to talk up or talk down the economy, and he should not be adding the Fed to his long list of institutions and individuals that he is maligning and otherwise attacking,” she said.
Clinton, a former U.S. senator from New York and secretary of state, also said that daughter Chelsea Clinton’s involvement in the Clinton Foundation charity will be decided after the Nov. 8 election.
Earlier, she told ABC News that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, should not have to step down before the election from his position at the Clinton Foundation.
“I don’t think there are conflicts of interest,” Clinton said in the ABC interview. “I know that that’s what has been alleged and never proven. But nevertheless, I take it seriously.”
Her use of a private email server while secretary of state and questions about improper influence involving donors to the Clinton Foundation have been thorny topics for Clinton as the presidential campaign headed into its final months. {eoa}
(Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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