Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered some pointed remarks to Princeton University’s graduating seniors just days after the Supreme Court ruled that he couldn’t be fired.
During an interfaith service celebrating the graduates and their guests on Sunday, Powell made it clear whose side he is on as President Donald Trump’s administration goes to war with Harvard University—and warns that others could be next.
“Our great universities are the envy of the world and a crucial national asset,” he said Sunday. “Look around you. I urge you to take none of this for granted.”
Powell didn’t name any names, but the context was clear. Over the past month and a half, the Trump administration has sought to deny Harvard $2.2 billion in federal funding, strip it of its tax-exempt status, and prevent it from enrolling international students.
Trump administration officials have said the moves were intended to fight antisemitism on campus.
Powell also told the graduating class that “generation upon generation” had been called on to move the country closer to its founding ideal that all people are created equal, and that now it was their turn.
“I ask you to take a minute and realize how the quest for these values has led us to this point in our history,” he said. “When you look back in 50 years, you will want to know that you have done whatever it takes to preserve and strengthen our democracy, and bring us ever closer to the Founders’ timeless ideals.”
Political observers were quick to note his words came after the Supreme Court issued a ruling Thursday saying Powell couldn’t be fired.
The justices were hearing an unrelated case about the firings of independent federal labor boards and went out of their way to note that the ruling—which allowed two members of the boards to be fired—didn’t apply to the Federal Reserve.
Trump nominated Powell to the role in 2017 but has since called for him to be removed before his term expires next year. The president later backed off that position after being warned about ensuing legal challenges and market turmoil, but has nevertheless raged at the Fed for not cutting interest rates.
In the meantime, Harvard has sued to try to restore its lost funding and to continue enrolling international students. The university has accused officials of a “campaign of retribution,” pointing to the president’s social media posts attacking Harvard.
“Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders,’” Trump raged last month.
During his address Sunday, Powell urged Princeton’s graduating seniors to continue to educate themselves and to keep growing as people.
He told them that throughout their lives, they must become more knowledgeable, better read, and more strategic, “but also wiser, kinder, more empathetic, more generous, more loving, more forgiving of others and of yourself.”
“Each of us is a work in progress,” he said. “The possibilities for self-improvement are limitless.”
The post Fed Chair Shades Trump in Graduation Speech After SCOTUS Says He Can’t Be Fired appeared first on The Daily Beast.
