President Donald Trump’s pick for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors said that modern monetary theory is a bad idea that won’t help support economic growth.

“This is the view that we can just print money and create growth. Of all the ideas I’ve ever heard in my lifetime, that’s one of the stupidest,” Stephen Moore said in a Bloomberg Television interview Thursday in Washington.

“If you could create growth by printing money, then Zimbabwe and Argentina and Venezuela would be the richest countries in the world.”

MMT is an economic school of thought that says governments that print their own currency and borrow in it can never go broke -- so they can expand their deficits more than normally thought, particularly for programs that spur growth, so long as inflation is subdued.

Moore, a Heritage Foundation fellow and a former Trump campaign adviser, spoke hours before pulling out of consideration for the job hours after he said he was “all in” for the central bank.

Moore is the latest big name to weigh in on the doctrine, which is supported by progressive politicians including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a way to fund expansive programs such as the Green New Deal.

Finance heavyweights from Warren Buffett to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have denounced MMT, while billionaire investor Ray Dalio and some Wall Street economists have expressed support for aspects of it.

“Can you imagine the idea that we just keep printing money and somehow that’s just going to create growth,” Moore said. “The fact that people are actually taking that serious is disturbing.”

MMT economists, responding to similar critiques, have said that’s a misrepresentation of their thinking.

Hours earlier, Moore said in an interview with Bloomberg News that he spoke to someone at the White House on Wednesday and had no indication he would not be nominated. “My biggest ally is the president,” he said. “He’s full speed ahead.”

“I’m all in,” Moore said.

Moore’s exit comes less than two weeks after Trump’s pick for another Fed seat -- former Godfather’s Pizza Inc. Chief Executive Officer Herman Cain -- withdrew from consideration as criticism related to sexual harassment allegations eroded support for him.

The White House has yet to announce new candidates, but Judy Shelton -- an economist who’s been affiliated with the free-market Atlas Network -- was endorsed last month for the job by the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

Moore was described by some critics as a threat to the Fed. In addition to being an unpredictable commentator and unorthodox economic thinker, Moore struck some economists as a partisan pick who might inject a short-term political agenda into monetary policy deliberations, which central bank independence is designed to guard against.