Ex-CNN commentator Stephen Moore out of Fed contention after sexist writings surfaced

Stephen Moore, the former pro-Trump CNN commentator, has decided to withdraw from consideration to serve on the Federal Reserve, the president announced on Twitter.

“Steve won the battle of ideas including Tax Cuts and deregulation which have produced non-inflationary prosperity for all Americans,” Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon. “I’ve asked Steve to work with me toward future economic growth in our Country.”

As recently as Thursday morning, Moore had said he didn’t plan on withdrawing from consideration over a litany of sexist statements and offensive remarks regarding race he has made over the last two decades.

“My biggest ally is the president,” Moore told reporters Thursday morning, according to Bloomberg. “He’s full speed ahead.”

Moore sent a letter to Trump asking the president to withdraw his name from consideration due to the widespread media coverage of his previous columns and appearances.

“The unrelenting attacks on my character have become untenable for me and my family and 3 more months of this would be too hard on us,” Moore wrote.

A spokesperson for CNN told the Hollywood Reporter that Moore “will not be returning as a contributor.”

Moore is the second unsuccessful nominee Trump has recently attempted to place on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Former restaurant executive Herman Cain, whom Trump said he would nominate, also withdrew from consideration late last month after the same sexual harassment allegations that ended his 2012 presidential campaign resurfaced.

Moore has appeared on CNN and Fox News as an analyst, and served as an editorial board member of The Wall Street Journal. He also was an economic adviser on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and advised the president on his 2017 tax cuts.

But Moore had come under fire in recent weeks over sexist columns he wrote for the conservative magazine National Review, and over comments he made on television and during other appearances over the past two decades.

“We are being force fed lady hoops. I have never in my life met anyone who actually liked watching women’s basketball,” Moore wrote in a March 2002 column, adding that it was a “travesty” that women were playing alongside men in playground games and in recreational leagues. He also called equal pay for men and women a “laughably bad idea" in a 2014 column, and criticized female athletes pushing for pay equality, claiming they sought “equal pay for inferior work.”

Moore also made offensive remarks regarding race, including claiming that divorce rates went up in “low-income and black households when a welfare check took the place of a father’s paycheck.” He also joked about Trump kicking the Obamas out of “public housing.”

In addition, Moore was criticized for suggesting that it’s the man’s role to be the “breadwinner” of a family, blaming a decline of the family on women being more “economically self-sufficient.” Those comments garnered more attention when it was reported a judge held Moore in contempt for failing to pay more than $300,000 in child support and alimony to his ex-wife, Allison Moore, whom he divorced in 2011.

Moore apologized for some of his remarks during an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, where he pleaded with reporters and pundits to refocus their coverage on his job qualifications.

“I’ll debate anybody on economics," Moore said. "Let’s make this about the economy.”

In recent days, Moore’s chances of being confirmed appeared slim, and several Republican lawmakers have expressed skepticism about his nomination.

“I would vote no against him, should he come up for a vote,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa) said on Bloomberg television on Wednesday. “I know there are a number of other colleagues that have spoken out as well.”