Sen. Brown livid over likely Fed pick calling Cleveland, Cincinnati ‘armpits of America’

Sen. Sherrod Brown is incensed over a YouTube video that has floated of President Donald Trump’s expected Federal Reserve Board nominee Stephen Moore trashing Cleveland and Cincinnati in 2014.

Brown, an Ohio Democrat who also is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs, is demanding an apology and public retraction from Moore after comments Moore made during a book event at the Heartland Institute in August 2014.

In a video of Moore, Moore currently a Heritage Foundation economist, is asked about Chicago. Moore calls Chicago “a world–class city,” and said “there’s no reason Chicago is not the Hong Kong of the Midwest.”

“It’s a parochial thing to say, but if you live in the Midwest, where else do you want to live besides Chicago, right?” he said. “You don’t want to live in Cleveland or Cincinnati, or, you know, these armpits of America. You want to live in Chicago.”

Those comments prompted Brown to fire off a letter Tuesday to Moore saying, “As a Clevelander and lifelong Ohioan, I’m offended and troubled” by those comments. Brown said he believes Moore’s comments “should be disqualifying for the critical role of Governor of the Federal Reserve Board.

“You didn’t just insult Cleveland and Cincinnati — you dismissed millions of Americans who work and live in small towns and cities across the industrial heartland, and who have been looked down on and left behind by Washington and Wall Street for decades,” he wrote. “As a public servant, your job would be to fight for these Americans — something you cannot do that when you don’t know the first thing about the places where they live.”

Brown goes on to give lengthy defenses of both Cleveland and Cincinnati, citing merits including the Cleveland Museum of Art and Playhouse Square in Cleveland and businesses in Cincinnati including Procter & Gamble, Kroger and GE Aviation. “How dare you demean them and their work,” he wrote.

Brown also accuses Moore of having a “long history” of supporting policies “that have directly contributed to the challenges faced by millions of Americans in these towns and cities.”

And he asks Moore to respond to the following questions including the following: “Why did you say that Cincinnati and Cleveland are the armpit of America? Please provide a list of other towns in the Midwest and the rest of the country that you believe also match the description of “the armpit of America.”

It must be noted that Trump is expected to nominate Moore but has yet to do so. Trump’s other pick for the Federal Reserve Board, Herman Cain, withdrew his name from consideration after dealing with the same accusations of sexual harassment that spurred him to end his 2012 presidential campaign.

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