\n<\/p>\n
President Trump\u2019s relationship with Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, has almost always been rocky.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Powell to his post in 2017. But throughout the president\u2019s first term, he made a habit of heckling Mr. Powell and his colleagues at the Fed.<\/p>\n
The pace and intensity of the attacks have escalated during Mr. Trump\u2019s second term. He has moved from name-calling to more overtly demanding that Mr. Powell, whose term ends in May 2026, either lower interest rates or resign. (Mr. Trump has argued that Mr. Powell, whom he has nicknamed \u201cToo Late,\u201d has been unforgivably slow to recognize what Mr. Trump sees as a necessity to lower rates.)<\/p>\n
During a meeting with Republicans in the Oval Office last week, the president showed off a copy of a draft letter written to fire Mr. Powell. The White House announced on Wednesday that Mr. Trump would visit the Federal Reserve\u2019s headquarters for about an hour at 4 p.m. on Thursday, but it did not specify further details, including whether he would meet with Mr. Powell.<\/p>\n
Plotted monthly<\/p>\n
Note: Each dot represents an occasion during which Trump mentioned Powell. Instances in which Trump insulted Powell multiple times during a single occasion are plotted only once.<\/p>\n
The New York Times analyzed what Mr. Trump has said about Mr. Powell on social media and in public interviews and press conferences during his first and second terms. In his second term, Mr. Trump has targeted Mr. Powell on approximately 43 separate occasions, all of them since April. The attacks have far outpaced those made during the entirety of Mr. Trump\u2019s first four years in office, over which he critiqued Mr. Powell on about 30 occasions.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump\u2019s comments about Mr. Powell fall into four broad categories. A selection of statements in each category are shown below.<\/p>\n
SECOND TERM<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump reignited his yearslong feud with Mr. Powell in April, after the Fed chair warned that the Trump administration\u2019s tariffs could lead to a \u201cchallenging scenario\u201d for the central bank by putting its two main goals \u2014 stable inflation and a healthy labor market \u2014 in tension.<\/p>\n
A day later, Mr. Trump lashed out at Mr. Powell in a lengthy post on Truth Social, saying that his \u201ctermination cannot come fast enough!\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not say if he would actually take steps to fire Mr. Powell. But weeks later, he told reporters at an event at the White House that Mr. Powell would be \u201cout of there real fast\u201d if Mr. Trump asked him to leave.<\/p>\n
That has proved not to be the case so far, as Mr. Trump has made multiple calls for Mr. Powell\u2019s resignation, and the Fed chair has yet to step down.<\/p>\n
For his part, Mr. Powell has repeatedly asserted that he intends to serve out his full term and maintain the Fed\u2019s independence in setting monetary policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople can say whatever they want,\u201d he said in April after Mr. Trump\u2019s first round of attacks. \u201cThat\u2019s fine. That\u2019s not a problem, but we will do what we do strictly without consideration of political or any other extraneous factors.\u201d<\/p>\n
During his first term, Mr. Trump rarely publicly called for Mr. Powell to step down. In private, however, he reportedly asked advisers whether he could fire him or strip him of his chair title and demote him to a Fed governor.<\/p>\n
To reporters, he denied considering those options, though he asserted that he had the \u201cright\u201d to rid himself of Mr. Powell if he wanted to.<\/p>\n
Scholars say the legal case for firing a Fed chair would be shaky, because the chair can be ousted only for \u201ccause,\u201d typically interpreted to mean malfeasance or gross misconduct.<\/p>\n
This year, Mr. Trump has been similarly oblique, even as his attacks have intensified. He has tended to go back and forth on his threats to oust Mr. Powell. Last month, he said he wasn\u2019t going to fire Mr. Powell \u2014 but that he didn\u2019t know \u201cwhy it would be so bad\u201d if he did. Later, he indicated on social media that \u201cmaybe, just maybe,\u201d he would change his mind.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, when confronted with reports that he had shared a draft letter firing Mr. Powell with House Republicans and asked them if he should send it, Mr. Trump once again equivocated. They had talked about \u201cthe concept of firing him,\u201d he said, but it was \u201chighly unlikely\u201d \u2014 \u201cunless he has to leave for fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump and his allies have accused Mr. Powell of mismanaging a project to renovate the central bank\u2019s headquarters and lying to Congress about those plans.<\/p>\n
FIRST TERM<\/p>\n
SECOND TERM<\/p>\n
Over the years, Mr. Trump has insulted everything from Mr. Powell\u2019s intelligence to his personality, calling him a \u201cmoron,\u201d a \u201cnumbskull,\u201d a \u201cstiff\u201d and more.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump\u2019s first in-office public attack on the Fed came in July 2018, after he had pushed through his tax cut legislation at the end of 2017. \u201cI don\u2019t like all of this work that we\u2019re putting into the economy, and then I see rates going up,\u201d he said in July of the following year.<\/p>\n
Past presidents have feuded with the Fed, but such public rebukes were rare in recent decades until Mr. Trump took office.<\/p>\n
Even Mr. Trump\u2019s first-term attacks on the Fed and Mr. Powell were more balanced than his recent gibes. In an interview with Fox Business Network in October 2018, he called the Fed the \u201cbiggest threat\u201d to his economic agenda, but also recognized its autonomy. \u201cIt\u2019s independent so I don\u2019t speak to him,\u201d he said of the Fed and Mr. Powell. \u201cBut I\u2019m not happy with what he\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
By his second term, such restraint had evaporated. Mr. Trump has made direct entreaties to Mr. Powell about rates \u2014 a recent Truth Social post simply read, \u201cLower the Rate, Too Late!\u201d \u2014 and stated on multiple occasions that even if he doesn\u2019t fire the Fed chair, he will pick a successor who will listen to him and cut rates.<\/p>\n
FIRST TERM<\/p>\n
SECOND TERM<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump complimented Mr. Powell unequivocally for the first and last time in November 2017 upon nominating him as Fed chair, calling him \u201cstrong,\u201d \u201csmart\u201d and \u201ca very, very talented guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
But their relationship quickly soured, and compliments thereafter were peppered with subtle (and not-so-subtle) jabs and critiques. \u201cI put a very good man in the Fed,\u201d he said in July 2018, when asked how he felt about the Fed. \u201cI don\u2019t necessarily agree with it, because he\u2019s raising interest rates.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fed did cut its benchmark interest rate to nearly zero in the midst of the Covid pandemic in March 2020, pledging to use all of its power to prevent the economy from collapsing. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Trump said he had called Mr. Powell to say \u201cgood job.\u201d He said it might have been the first time he praised Mr. Powell\u2019s job performance. \u201cHe was, you know, a little bit slower than I would have liked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump formally met with Mr. Powell for the first time this year in May, a few weeks after calling him a \u201cFOOL\u201d whom he nevertheless liked \u201cvery much.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the meeting, the Fed released a statement saying that Mr. Powell did not \u201cdiscuss his expectations for monetary policy\u201d during the meeting and that the Fed\u2019s decisions would be \u201cbased solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Methodology<\/p>\n
To analyze President Trump\u2019s public statements about Jerome H. Powell, The New York Times reviewed and categorized transcriptions on Roll Call FactBa.se of every public appearance by Mr. Trump, as well as posts on Mr. Trump\u2019s Truth Social and X\/Twitter accounts, during the entirety of his first term and from the start of his second term to July 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Powell\u2019s termination cannot come fast enough! April 17 I don\u2019t know why it would be so bad, but I\u2019m not going to fire him. June 12 I talked about the concept of firing him. July 16 President Trump\u2019s relationship with Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, has almost always been rocky. Mr.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1839,3281,5719,4439,71],"class_list":{"0":"post-12148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-attacks","9":"tag-feds","10":"tag-intensified","11":"tag-powell","12":"tag-trumps"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}