Florida Governor Ron DeSantis positioned himself at the furthest edge of the 2024 field on the twin issues of the Federal Reserve and cryptocurrency as he unveiled his economic plans this week.
DeSantis now has perhaps the most aggressive stance in the field when it comes to the Fed. He said he'll "rein in" the central bank during a speech Monday, and then went further in an interview with The Wall Street Journal by floating the idea of ousting Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell before his term expires in 2026.
DeSantis also offered more details about his stance on cryptocurrency. The Florida governor again slammed the idea of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which he paired with a strong defense of the embattled sector overall.
"We are going to let Americans invest in things like bitcoin and cryptocurrency," he said Monday. "Biden's war on bitcoin and cryptocurrency will come to an end when I become president."
The platform that DeSantis fleshed out this week aligns with his ongoing attempt to pivot his campaign away from a focus on culture war issues and include a populist economic message aimed at toppling "elites" across American society. It also sets up a clear contrast on these issues to GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
It was Trump who appointed Powell to his seat atop the Fed in 2017 before criticizing him for the rest of his term. Trump has also been skeptical of cryptocurrency over the years, saying in 2017 he was "not a fan" and adding in 2021 that bitcoin "seems like a scam" in a Fox Business interview.
DeSantis is currently looking for any avenue to regain traction against the former president as the gap between Trump and the rest of the field continues to widen. A recent Yahoo News/YouGov survey found Trump with a 25-point advantage over DeSantis and a New York Times/Siena College poll released this week found an even wider 37-point margin.
A range of contenders floating changes to the Federal Reserve
On the Fed, DeSantis is among a range of contenders teasing major changes at the central bank. Like DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy want to end the Fed’s dual mandate and focus solely on inflation.
Ramaswamy has also discussed an idea to cut 90% of the staff at the Fed and recently wrote, "I intend to make the 2024 presidential race in part a referendum on the proper role of our central bank."
Trump has of course had a complicated relationship with the Fed for a while now. Trump railed against Powell for years but left office with little in the way of structural changes to show for it. Trump has made increasing presidential power over the federal bureaucracy a central part of his 2024 run but has remained vague on the question of whether the Fed would be included.
Either way, no other candidate has apparently discussed ousting Powell before his term expires, as DeSantis floated this week. During his term, the Trump administration reportedly explored ideas for demoting Powell before dropping the idea.
DeSantis's position on the Fed also puts him in a similar camp as many Democrats on the far left who have long criticized Powell, a registered Republican. The loudest Powell critic from the left is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who recently said that Powell has two jobs and "has failed at both."
Also one of the most pro-crypto candidates
On crypto, perhaps the most outspoken candidate in the field is Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is running as a long-shot candidate on the GOP side and had previously aimed to make his city the "crypto capital of the world."
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist running on the Democratic side, has also positioned himself as a strong crypto defender. Also a long-shot candidate, Kennedy has floated a controversial idea of having the US buy bitcoin to underpin the value of the dollar.
He also slammed the idea of a central bank digital currency, tweeting earlier this year that it could "grease the slippery slope to financial slavery and political tyranny."
For his part, President Biden has taken a more nuanced approach to the two issues by renominating Powell as the leader of the Fed in 2021 and commenting sparingly on cryptocurrency. The SEC under Biden-nominee Gary Gensler has cracked down on various types of crypto assets during recent years, including 17 enforcement actions this year alone.
DeSantis, meanwhile, is set to continue focusing on both crypto and the Fed on the campaign trail, especially through his opposition to a central bank digital currency.
He underlined this week that he sees the idea of a CBDC as a threat, and he charged that it "allows elites to circumscribe purchases that they don't like" such as ammunition and energy.
"On day one, CBDC goes into the trash can," he added Monday.
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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