Dr Don Brash has unleashed on "evil" US President Donald Trump, saying he's clearly lost the US election.
The former National leader appeared on Wednesday's The AM Show - wearing Joe Biden socks.
"I just think Trump was an evil President, frankly, and I'm delighted to show him my support for the winner," he told host Duncan Garner.
Garner questioned whether Biden, the President-elect, has really won yet.
"Well he's won," Dr Brash replied. "Trump hasn't conceded but Biden has clearly won. Even the Republican Governor of Arizona says, 'We have a perfectly good system in Arizona and Biden won.'"
Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that the election was stolen through widespread fraud, claims repeatedly rejected by state and federal officials.
He kept up his unfounded fraud claims in an interview with Fox News on Sunday. However Trump appeared to retreat from his combative legal stance, telling Fox that he did not see a path toward making his case to the Supreme Court.
Even Trump ally Attorney-General William Barr has admitted the US Justice Department has not uncovered any evidence of widespread voter fraud.
"To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election," the Associated Press quoted Barr as saying.
Before Dr Brash shifted to politics he was New Zealand's Governor of the Reserve Bank for 14 years. Questioned what he thought Trump had done for the economy, Dr Brash took his administration's fiscal policies to task.
"He kept cutting taxes and running an enormous fiscal deficit when unemployment was 3.5 [percent]," he said.
"You run a fiscal deficit when unemployment is high, not when it's low."
Meanwhile, Biden unveiled his picks for several top economic positions this week.
Biden nominated Janet Yellen, who was the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve, as his Treasury Secretary, and Adewale Adeyemo, who would be the first Black deputy Treasury Secretary.
Other members of his economics team include Neera Tanden, chief executive of the progressive Center for American Progress think tank, as director of the White House Budget Office. She would be the first woman of colour to lead that agency.
Reuters / Newshub.
