President Donald Trump’s criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell resumed late Wednesday, when Trump said the central bank chief is making a mistake by not lowering interest rates.
“I haven’t called him. I might call him,” Trump said in an Oval Office signing ceremony. “I believe he’s making a mistake by not lowering interest rates, and I think, as well as we’re doing, we could do much better.”
Trump has been fiercely critical of Powell for not cutting interest rates amid fears that the president’s tariffs will fuel inflation. And Trump has suggested the Fed chair is playing politics with interest rates.
“He’s keeping rates too high,” Trump said, also accusing Powell of acting too slowly to raise rates several years ago as inflation first spiked. “He historically has been late… he was recommended by a certain person I’m not particularly happy with.”
Trump nominated Powell to head the central bank in 2017. Then-President Joe Biden renominated Powell to the post during his presidential term.
Trump has ramped up his comments about Powell recently. Last week, the president called the Fed chair “always too late and wrong” and said his “termination cannot come soon enough.” And Monday, the president called the Fed chair a “major loser” and “Mr. Too Late,” which helped send the Dow plummeting 1,000 points on the day.
Those comments — and others — have led people to question whether the president was going to try to fire Powell, whose role (and independence) is guaranteed by federal law and is backed by Supreme Court precedent.
But the president walked his comments back Tuesday, saying he had “no intention” of firing Powell. That came after advisers reportedly warned Trump that firing the central bank chief would backfire. Even some Republican senators had taken to the airwaves to caution the the president about the ramifications of such an attempted move.
Powell, for his part, has said he won’t leave his post until his term is up, in May 2026. He has also said that the Fed won’t rush into making an interest rate decision ahead of the committee’s next scheduled meeting, in May.
“He will hopefully do the right thing — the right thing is to lower interest rates, so we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “I think we’re we’re sitting on something that’s going to be very good with all the tariff money starting to come in. Our country is going to be doing really well, and hopefully he’ll, you know, we don’t have inflation.”
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