President Trump is upping his public criticism of the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, saying that he should resign from his position. Mr. Powell has insisted — despite the president’s increasingly frequent comments — that he will not resign, and will stay in the job until his term ends next year. 

Mr. Trump has been bashing Mr. Powell since he returned to the White House in January, though his broadsides have grown more frequent since the Federal Reserve declined to cut rates at its June meeting. In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said Mr. Powell should step down. 

“‘Too Late’ should resign immediately!!!” Mr. Trump wrote, using his nickname for the chairman, “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell.” Mr. Trump shared a link to a Bloomberg article reporting on the chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, saying that Mr. Powell should be investigated. 

“Chairman Powell needs to be investigated by Congress immediately,” Mr. Pulte said in a statement on X on Wednesday, arguing that Mr. Powell could be fired for cause. 

Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Powell to the Fed chairmanship during his first term, though he has been expressing his frustrations nearly since the moment Mr. Powell took the job. The then-45th president said he was unhappy with Mr. Powell’s decision to raise rates at a 2018 Fed meeting. 

Since returning to the White House, the president and fellow Republicans have been especially upset. The Fed cut rates at its September 2024 meeting, which GOP lawmakers took as a sign that Mr. Powell wanted to paint a rosy economic picture for the Democrats headed into last year’s election. 

During testimony before the House Financial Services Committee last month, Mr. Powell was peppered with questions by Republicans about why he would move to cut rates in September, but not do so in June 2025. 

“There’s no recession. That’s been established. There’s no hyperinflation or certainly not as [high] as what some had been projecting, yet there seems to be higher than expected … interest rates,” a Michigan Republican, Congressman Bill Huizenga, said to Mr. Powell. “So, what is it that’s keeping, in your mind, the Fed from … [lowering] interest rates?”

“Why aren’t we doing what the rest of the world is doing?” Mr. Huizenga added. Mr. Powell responded by saying only that the Fed’s decision was based on forecasts that the president’s new tariffs will have an inflationary impact later this year. 

Mr. Trump has attacked Mr. Powell on about half-a-dozen occasions since the start of his second term. This past week, Mr. Trump during an interview with Fox News called Mr. Powell a “bad” and “stupid” person. A few days later, the president sent a hand-written note to the Fed chairman, telling him to lower rates because there is “no inflation.”

“Jerome — You are, as usual, ‘Too Late.’ You have cost the USA a fortune and continue to do so. You should lower the rate — By a lot!” the president wrote in his message over a chart listing foreign interest rates, which was shown to the press by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at a briefing. “Hundreds of billions of dollars are being lost! No inflation!”