Trump-backed Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters blames economic woes on diversity hires in Federal Reserve

Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Blake Masters kicked up controversy again this week after the Arizona Republican pinned the country’s economic setbacks on so-called diversity hires at the Federal Reserve.

“Look I don’t care if every single member at the Fed is a Black lesbian,” began Mr Masters in a video shared on his personal Twitter account Monday night. “As long as they’re hired for their competence, not because of what they look like or who they sleep with.”

The GOP candidate, who won the state’s Republican primary earlier this month, made the remarks in response to a tweet he’d sent one day earlier. In that tweet, the Arizona Republican had retweeted an article from the Associated Press that discussed how the Fed was tackling inflation with its “most diverse leadership ever”.

In response, the Trump-backed Republican commented with a heavy-handed dose of sarcasm that this article served as “a compelling explanation for why our economy is doing so well.”

In reality, the Associated Press article had discussed how the 109-year-old central banking system having more female, Black and openly gay officials weighing in on matters such as the federal interest rate, it would actually serve to deepen the Fed’s perspective and even help a greater share of Americans affected by those consequential decisions.

After receiving some negative press from the original tweet, the Arizona venture capitalist took to Twitter on Monday to share a video that defended his position.

“News for Joe Biden we are done with this affirmative action regime,” said Mr Masters, before boldly proclaiming that he hasn’t seen “a single policy since the end of Jim Crow that’s been worse or more divisive for race relations in this country”.

“Race quotas are wrong. Gender quotas are wrong. They’re unjust, they’re illegal, but the Democrats are addicted to this kind of identity politics garbage.”

Mr Masters, who notably earned Mr Trump’s backing after becoming an avowed campaigner for incorrectly pushing the former president’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, has made a series of similarly inflammatory remarks since announcing his political ambitions in March 2022.

In April, one month after resigning Peter Thiel’s investment firm as chief operating officer and launching his bid for the Senate, he said during an appearance on the podcast The Jeff Oravits Show that “Black people, frankly,” were responsible for America’s gun violence problem.

In the same video shared on Monday, Mr Masters took aim at a specific official from inside the Biden administration who he deemed as being the most offensive example of meeting affirmative action quotas: Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Biden promised that he would pick a woman for his VP. Then of course, he picked Kamala Harris, so incompetent she can’t even get a sentence out,” said Mr Masters.

“There’s such a thing as fairness. We’re going to end this unfair and incompetent affirmative action regime,” he added before signing off.

The Trump-backed Arizona Republican will now square off against Democratic Senator Mark Kelly in November. Mr Kelly won a special election in 2020 to finish the final two years of the late Senator John McCain’s term.