UPDATE 3-Moore withdraws from consideration for Fed post

U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve has withdrawn from consideration after weeks of criticism against economic commentator Stephen Moore's shifting views on interest rate policy and sexist comments about women. "Steve Moore, a great pro-growth economist and a truly fine person, has decided to withdraw from the Fed process," Trump said on Twitter on Thursday. "Steve won the battle of ideas including Tax Cuts .... and deregulation which have produced non-inflationary prosperity for all Americans. I’ve asked Steve to work with me toward future economic growth in our Country."

Earlier Thursday, Moore had told Bloomberg TV that he was "all in" and that he expected to be nominated within three weeks. Moore, 59, was picked by Trump in March to fill one of two vacant positions at the Fed, but had not been formally nominated. Trump's other pick for the Fed, businessman Herman Cain, withdrew from consideration in mid-April after lawmakers expressed discomfort with the sexual harassment allegations that short-circuited Cain's presidential bid in 2012. Cain has denied those allegations.

Moore, for his part, had said his comments about women were meant as humor, and that his credentials as an economist should win him needed support from Senators. On Thursday, Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey agreed, saying he was "inclined to support" Moore's nomination. But in a letter of resignation, tweeted by a New York Times White House reporter, Moore said the toll the scrutiny was taking on his family made continuing the process "untenable." Moore didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

At the Fed, Moore would have had a permanent vote on setting interest rates for at least five years and as many as 11 years, depending on which of two vacant posts he would have occupied. Moore's loyalty to Trump worried some lawmakers, concerned that his partisanship could threaten the Fed's independence, seen as critical to the U.S. central bank's ability to conduct policy effectively.

But it was Moore's history of sexist comments about women, both jokingly and not, that appeared to most hurt his prospects, with Republican senators including Joni Ernst citing those remarks for their opposition to, or at least hesitation over, Moore. In one column that Moore has since apologized for, Moore joked that women should not referee men's basketball games and suggested they should not be in military combat. In another in 2014, Moore said that if women were paid more than men, society could be destabilized.

A fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation whose past jobs include writing editorials for the Wall Street Journal and policy pieces for the libertarian Cato Institute, Moore has a long track record of supporting Republican causes, chief among them tax cuts. In 1999 he founded the Club for Growth to raise money for likeminded politicians, and ran it until 2004. Moore said less about monetary policy than fiscal policy over the years, and his views have been less consistent. As recently as September 2015 he called for eliminating the U.S. central bank and removing then-Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who he said was keeping money too easy.

More recently, Moore called for the firing of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell after the central bank raised interest rates in December and, like Trump, he has called for rate cuts this year. Democrats hailed the withdrawal.

"The only thing less funny than some of Mr. Moore’s tasteless, offensive, sexist ‘jokes’ was the idea that President Trump would even consider him for a seat on the Federal Reserve," said New York's Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate. (Reporting by Dan Burns in Washington and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Writing by Ann Saphir Editing by Paul Simao and James Dalgleish)