2 minute read
President Donald Trump appears to be waffling over whether he will fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Trump told lawmakers on Tuesday that he is likely to remove Powell from his job in the near future, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal.
A senior White House official told the Journal that the president asked lawmakers during a meeting how they felt about Powell being fired, and several expressed support for the move.
But on Wednesday, Trump told reporters that he was not, in fact, planning on firing Powell.
“No, we’re not planning on doing anything,” Trump said, according to Bloomberg. He later added that it was “highly unlikely” he would fire Powell “unless he has to leave” due to “fraud.”
Trump has expressed deep frustration that Powell has not yet cut interest rates. The Fed chair has taken a wait-and-see approach to monetary policy, citing uncertainty around the tariffs put in play by the Trump administration.
If he does seek to take the unprecedented step to fire Powell, Trump would test the legal bounds of his authority over the central bank and independent federal agencies.
Trump and his allies, including Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, have alleged that the renovation work at the Fed’s Washington, D.C., headquarters has tallied $2.5 billion and is too lavish. Trump on Tuesday said he thought it was a fireable offense.
Powell has called media reports about the renovations inaccurate. Earlier this week, he made a formal request for the bank’s inspector general to review the renovation.
In late June, Trump began what insiders have described as an operation to “shadow” Powell, identifying potential successors well ahead of any official transition. The strategy involves selecting a new Fed chair early and using that individual to communicate alternative monetary policy views to the market — effectively undermining the current leadership at the central bank.
The names under consideration as the next chair reportedly include former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, current Fed Governor Christopher Waller, former World Bank President David Malpass and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
