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Last week, the Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve.

It is a big and daunting job under the best of circumstances, given the Fed's mandate to promote

maximum employment while keeping prices stable. And it's even harder when the president

tries to influence the agency's actions on interest rates. From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

Donald Trump is hardly the first president to want the Fed to briefly juice the U.S. economy in time

for critical elections, which, as my guest will explain, is exactly why Congress set the Federal

Reserve up to be independent and able to make the kind of hard decisions

that could benefit the country in the long run. James Jacoby is a correspondent at Frontline.

His new documentary there is the President and the Fed. James, welcome to think.

Thank you so much for having me, Chris.

So Congress created the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Just briefly, James, remind us of what

the Fed is supposed to do for us.

The Fed is our central bank. And basically what it's meant to do is to keep in mind the,

it controls the money supply, and it controls interest rates, which is the cost of money, the cost of borrowing.

And so it has this very powerful lever. We all are at the whims of the Fed to some extent because

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