IBM vice chairman on inflation, tariff impact and Kevin Warsh

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA) - IBM Vice Chairman Gary Cohn spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about inflation and tariff impacts.

According to Brennan, President Donald Trump cited a Wall Street Journal editorial "arguing all the economic success that we are seeing right now is due to his tariff policies."

However, Brennan said, "The legality of that, of some of those tariffs are being debated right now before the Supreme Court," prompting her to ask Cohn how factual does he assessed President Trump's argument, and he said:

"I think we need to take a step back. The economy is quite strong right now on top-line growth. So if you look at GDP, gross domestic product, which is the overall output of the U.S. economy, we're trending about 5% right now, which is a very high growth rate in the United States, much higher than the baseline we've had for the last decade. So if you look at that number alone, and that's a good number to look at, things are going well. The inflation rate has come down to the high 2%. It's still higher than we'd like it. And the unemployment rate is ticking up, but it's still in a reasonable place around 4, 4.5%. So overall, the economy is quite strong right now. That said, we've got an interesting economy right now. We've got this massive wealth effect at the top end. And we've got hardworking Americans who are having a very difficult time paying their bills, and they're suffering in this economy. And I think the White House has acknowledged that they're suffering. I think part of the reason the president wrote the op-ed was to try and get out in front of people who are having a hard time paying their bills and meeting their expenses. The White House is going on the offensive. The president is going to spend time out on the road talking about affordability. Affordability is going to be the issue."

During the interview, Brennan and Cohn talked about Kevin Warsh, who is the president's pick to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

When asked what he expects from Warsh in office, Cohn said:

"I think we're very fortunate to have Kevin to be the nominee. Kevin has a unique background coming in as the chair. As you said, he was a member of the Fed board before. He was there during the 2008 financial crisis. He was instrumental in that crisis. What I mean by that is when banks were going through stress, and we saw a lot of bank mergers, we saw a lot of assets being moved around the system, Kevin was the point person at the Fed. He was involved in every one of those discussions. And I truly believe without Kevin's expertise and without Kevin being there, we would not have come out of the 2008 crisis as well as we have. So he's very highly qualified. He's going to take the Fed back to its traditional sort of norms. You know, I think Kevin's going to stay out of a lot of the non-financial issues. He's going to be involved, obviously, in setting interest rate policy. There is a pressure right now for interest rates to go lower. I think that he will probably follow through on the one to two cuts this year."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Cohn, click here.