Trump Tries To Strong-Arm Jerome Powell in Private Meeting

President Trump on Thursday made an effort to strong-arm the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, by telling him he was making a “mistake” in not lowering interest rates faster. The president has long criticized Mr. Powell in public, though the face-to-face meeting Thursday marks a break from the longstanding tradition that presidents do not try to directly influence the central bank’s leadership. Speaking from the podium on Thursday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, confirmed that Mr. Trump expressed his monetary policy wishes to the chairman. “The president did say that he believes the Fed chair is making a mistake by not lowering interest rates, which is putting us at an economic disadvantage to China and other countries,” Ms. Leavitt said. “The president’s been very vocal about that both publicly and now I can reveal privately, as well.”When asked if the two men discussed the possibility of Mr. Powell leaving his position before his term expires next year, Ms. Leavitt said, “No.”Before the White House briefing on Thursday, Mr. Powell put out his own statement about the meeting that had taken place. He says he told the president he would not allow the central bank to make policy decisions based on politics. Mr. Powell “did not discuss his expectations for monetary policy, except to stress that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook,” the Fed said in a statement. “Chair Powell said that he and his colleagues on the [Federal Open Market Committee] will set monetary policy, as required by law, to support maximum employment and stable prices and will make those decisions based solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis,” the central bank added.Mr. Trump has long criticized Mr. Powell for his leadership, even though the president himself appointed the chairman during his first term. Just months after Mr. Powell took his post in 2018, Mr. Trump expressed displeasure that he would choose to raise rates. The next year, Mr. Trump said Mr. Powell and the Fed had “no guts, no sense, no vision,” after they failed to dramatically cut rates. When the Fed declined to cut rates in April due to Mr. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, the president took to Truth Social to call the chairman a “major loser.” Mr. Trump went so far as to imply that the Fed only cut interest rates last fall because Mr. Powell wanted to see Vice President Harris win the 2024 election. “Powell has always been ‘Too Late,’ except when it came to the Election period when he lowered in order to help Sleepy Joe Biden, later Kamala, get elected. How did that work out?” Mr. Trump asked facetiously. After Mr. Trump was elected last year, the Fed chairman was asked by a reporter at a press conference if he would accede to the president-elect’s demand that he leave his position, if Mr. Trump was to make such a threat. Mr. Powell said that the dismissal of a Fed chairman is “not permitted under the law.”The Supreme Court recently appeared to lend credence to Mr. Powell’s stated appraisal in an interim ruling over Mr. Trump’s ability to fire the members of boards of federal agencies. While the high court suggested that the president could terminate without cause members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, this was not necessarily the case for members Federal Reserve board. That is partly because, the court said, the central bank is a “uniquely structured, quasi-private entity” and it “follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”

Trump Tries To Strong-Arm Jerome Powell in Private Meeting

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