Trump Says Powell Will Be Out Fast If President Wants It

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he could force out Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, rebuking the notion that the US central bank is independent, and vented frustration that monetary policymakers had not recently cut interest rates.“If I ask him to, he’ll be out of there,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday when asked about an earlier social media post blasting the Fed chair as being too slow to lower rates. “I’m not happy with him. I let him know it.”The US president in the post said that “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” A Fed spokesperson had declined to comment on Trump’s earlier remark.At the White House, Trump didn’t respond to a follow-up question from a reporter about whether he was trying to remove the central bank chief. He also said Powell, who he nominated to take the Fed’s helm during his first term, has been “terrible.” There’s “essentially no inflation,” and if the Fed cut its benchmark, then borrowing costs would be lower also, he said.“Other than interest rates, everything’s down,” Trump said, citing items including crude oil and gasoline. “Because we’ve got a Federal Reserve chairman who’s playing politics,” he said, noting that European rates by contrast have gone down.There was little sign of a direct reaction to Trump’s remarks on Powell in financial markets Thursday. Stocks climbed amid optimism about the potential for tariff deals with the European Union and Japan, and Treasuries retreated. The S&P 500 Index was about 0.8% higher as of 2:46 p.m., while two-year yields were up about 3 basis points, at 3.80%.Powell’s term as Fed chair runs into May 2026, while his term as a governor lasts until February 2028. Trump’s comments come a day after Powell, speaking in Chicago, reiterated that the Fed isn’t in a rush to cut rates and instead is awaiting greater clarity on the economy.Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer condemned the president’s social-media post, saying on X that “an independent Fed is vital for a healthy economy— something that Trump has proved is not a priority for him.”The president’s ability to remove top officials at agencies that had long been viewed as having a measure of independence from the White House has come into acute focus in recent months, after the administration dismissed senior officials at the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board.