“If I were offered the job, I would try to encourage the Fed not to make inflation a fear factor because deflation, as Stephen Moore had pointed out in a great article that he wrote along with another economist, deflation is more of a fear factor than inflation,” Mr. Cain said in a February interview with the Fox Business Network.
Perhaps most importantly to Mr. Trump, Mr. Cain has shown that he is loyal to the president. Last September, Mr. Cain formed the America Fighting Back PAC, which has the mission to publicly refute what he believes is misinformation about Mr. Trump.
“We’re offering a compelling, solid refutation to what you hear from the media and the rest of the left about President Trump and conservative ideas,” Mr. Cain said at the time.
It is unclear whether Mr. Cain will clear the background check. His presidential campaign came to a screeching halt after several women came forward with accusations of sexual harassment.
In some ways, Mr. Cain, who preferred media interviews to intensive retail campaigning, presaged Mr. Trump’s own outsider campaign four years later. But unlike the president, Mr. Cain was fatally wounded when he faced charges of sexual misconduct.
In October of 2011, Politico reported that, as head of the National Restaurant Association, Mr. Cain had been accused of sexually harassing two women, who left the trade group after receiving financial payouts and signing nondisclosure agreements. One of the women, who was from Chicago, said that Mr. Cain made an unwanted and rough physical advance on her.
Confronted with the claims, Mr. Cain initially did not deny them. He later proclaimed his innocence and sought to cast blame for what he called a smear campaign on political rivals and the news media.
Other women emerged soon after to say that they, too, had been sexually harassed by Mr. Cain. And by December of that year, he dropped out of the presidential race.
