'Close the F***ing Door': Fed Chair Interrupted as Climate Protesters Storm Stage
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell spoke at the International Monetary Fund’s annual research conference in Washington, D.C., Thursday, but his presentation didn’t go exactly as planned.
Powell had been speaking for less than a minute when the feed of the panel (available in its entirety below) showed several people stepping onto the stage just behind him.
Just before the organizers shut down the livestream, but after the video portion of the feed was replaced by a card announcing the “24th Jacques Polak Annual Research Conference,” a man’s voice could be heard saying, “Just close the f***ing door.”
The voice sounded like Powell’s but, when asked about it later, a spokeperson for the Federal Reserve told The Hill, “We don’t have anything on that for you right now. If that changes, we’ll be in touch.”
WARNING: The following videos contain language that may offend some readers.
JUST IN: FED chair Jerome Powell isn’t having it after getting interrupted by climate protesters, tells staff to just “close the f***ing door” on them.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just close the f***ing door. Close the door.”
Good 🔥
During the same speech, Powell said… pic.twitter.com/yLJ0IoTaEm
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 9, 2023
One of the protesters yelled something, apparently from the stage, but her exact words were difficult to make out.
“Jerome Powell, by refusing to treat climate change like the systemic risk that it is, you are putting us at risk of economic disaster,” she seemed to say.
“OK, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you,” the voice that sounded like Powell’s said in response. “Just close the f***ing door. Close the door.”
At that point someone thought to cut off the sound feed in addition to the video.
The feed remained silent for a little more than four minutes, presumably while security removed the protesters from the venue.
“Of course, climate issues are important, and they’re appropriately addressed, but as I mentioned, we’ll try to keep the questions on the topic for today,” panel moderator Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said when the feed resumed, to laughter from the audience.
According to The Hill, Powell had recently been interrupted by protesters at the Economic Club of New York, making yesterday’s event the second such disruption in less than a month.
Powell stated, when he was able to continue his remarks, the Fed was “not confident” that it had yet taken sufficient action to rein inflation in.
“The Federal Open Market Committee is committed to achieving a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down to 2 percent over time; we are not confident that we have achieved such a stance.”
You can watch the entire panel discussion here; it’s queued up to just before the point at which the protesters can be seen coming up onto the stage while Powell speaks.
The Consumer Price Index was up .4 percent in the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Annual inflation for the 12 months ending in September was 3.7 percent, according to the same report.
The next inflation report from the BLS is due on Tuesday.
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