Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was right to recommend Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chairman despite President Donald Trump’s frequent criticism of the central bank leader.

“I don’t feel like I picked the wrong person,” Mnuchin said Wednesday in an interview on CNBC. “But I respect the president’s views and his views of the economy, where he’s had tremendous insight.”

The Fed’s interest rate increases in 2018 outraged the president, who went so far as to discuss firing Powell with his advisers late in the year. He has said he will nominate two political loyalists to the Federal Reserve board, former Godfather’s Pizza Inc. Chief Executive Officer Herman Cain and Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore, a move that’s been perceived as Trump’s effort to influence monetary policy.

Mnuchin later said in a speech at the International Monetary Fund that Powell’s job is safe and that he trusts his judgment.

“I do trust Chairman Powell to get it right,” Mnuchin said. “I see no reason why his job isn’t safe.”

Mnuchin said Cain deserves to be confirmed to one of two open seats on the Fed board despite concerns about his background. Cain ended his campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination in 2011 after he was accused of sexual harassment while leading the National Restaurant Association and infidelity.

“I don’t know Cain very well but I have every reason to believe the president supports him and feels strongly, so yes I would think he should be confirmed,” Mnuchin said.

In his IMF speech, the Treasury secretary also said that he doesn’t see the U.S. returning to the gold standard -- an idea advocated by Cain and to a lesser extent, Moore. He wrote in 2015 that the value of the dollar should be pegged to a basket of commodities but that a gold standard would be “a lot better than what we have now.”

“I do not see the United States going back to the gold standard,” Mnuchin said after he was asked about Moore’s views. “I don’t think we should have the gold standard.”