{"id":34401,"date":"2025-07-16T17:13:34","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T17:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=34401"},"modified":"2025-07-16T17:13:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T17:13:34","slug":"donald-trump-asked-lawmakers-whether-he-should-fire-feds-jay-powell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=34401","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump asked lawmakers whether he should fire Fed\u2019s Jay Powell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=47f3fc7d-7952-456e-b64a-a05304d912d0&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Donald Trump asked lawmakers whether he should fire Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell in a move that fuelled a fresh bout of concerns over the central bank\u2019s independence and hit the dollar.<\/p>\n<p>A White House official on Wednesday said Trump asked Republican members of Congress during an Oval Office meeting late the previous day whether he should remove Powell. Lawmakers supported the idea, the official said.<\/p>\n<p>Trump later on Wednesday pushed back at the prospect that he would imminently sack Powell, who the president has relentlessly criticised in recent weeks for declining to cut interest rates. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not planning on doing anything,\u201d Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t rule out anything, but I think it\u2019s highly unlikely, unless he has to leave for fraud, and it\u2019s possible there\u2019s fraud,\u201d the president added.<\/p>\n<p>Trump said \u201calmost every one\u201d of the lawmakers he met on Tuesday signalled he should remove the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/federal-reserve\" data-trackable=\"link\">Fed<\/a> chair before his current four-year term ends in May 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The dollar swung in volatile trading, with an index tracking the currency against its peers sliding as much as 0.9 per cent, before trimming its losses to roughly 0.3 per cent. The odds on prediction market Polymarket that Trump would fire Powell in 2025 shot up to as high as 40 per cent, before receding to 20 per cent before the president appeared to backtrack.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"n-content-image n-content-image--full\" data-component=\"image-set\"><picture><source media=\"(min-width: 700px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A954665c4-4b0c-401a-8b4e-2d6180877303?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=700&amp;dpr=1 1x,https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A954665c4-4b0c-401a-8b4e-2d6180877303?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=700&amp;dpr=2 2x,https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A954665c4-4b0c-401a-8b4e-2d6180877303?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=700&amp;dpr=3 3x,https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A954665c4-4b0c-401a-8b4e-2d6180877303?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=700&amp;dpr=4 4x,https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A954665c4-4b0c-401a-8b4e-2d6180877303?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=700&amp;dpr=5 5x\" width=\"3500\" height=\"2500\"\/><source media=\"(max-width: 490px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A60706eb3-dc37-434a-9a1e-536f0b146387?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=490&amp;dpr=1 1x,https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A60706eb3-dc37-434a-9a1e-536f0b146387?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=490&amp;dpr=2 2x,https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/ftcms%3A60706eb3-dc37-434a-9a1e-536f0b146387?source=next-article&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=490&amp;dpr=3 3x\" width=\"1500\" height=\"2000\"\/><\/picture><\/figure>\n<p>Speculation that Trump might fire Powell reached a fever pitch after Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican congresswoman from Florida, posted on X on Tuesday night that she was \u201chearing\u201d that the Fed chair would be fired, and his sacking would be \u201cimminent\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Luna was among 11 House Republicans who met Trump in the Oval Office late on Tuesday as the president tried to win over their support for legislation that would create a regulatory framework for stablecoin issuers.<\/p>\n<p>Trump has insisted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/us-interest-rates\" data-trackable=\"link\">interest rates<\/a> should be as much as 3 percentage points lower than their current levels of 4.25 per cent to 4.5 per cent, saying lower borrowing costs would help reduce the public debt burden of his \u201cbig, beautiful\u201d budget bill. <\/p>\n<div class=\"n-content-layout\" data-component=\"flourish\" data-component-id=\"24269398\" data-component-type=\"flourish-in-article\">\n<figure class=\"n-content-picture n-content-layout__container\"><a href=\"#24269398\"><picture data-asset-type=\"flourish\" data-flourish-id=\"24269398\" data-flourish-type=\"visualisation\">\n<div id=\"24269398\" class=\"cp-message o-message o-message--inform o-message--notice\" data-o-component=\"o-message\">\n<div class=\"o-message__container\">\n<div class=\"o-message__content\">\n<p class=\"o-message__content-main\">Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fpublic.flourish.studio%2Fvisualisation%2F24269398%2Fthumbnail%3FcacheBuster%3D973713?source=cp-content-pipeline&amp;fit=scale-down&amp;quality=highest&amp;width=1020&amp;dpr=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/picture><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>However, Powell and many other members of the Fed\u2019s policy-setting board are worried Trump\u2019s tariffs could increase inflation. A report on Tuesday pointed to growing pressures on consumer prices. <\/p>\n<p>The White House has recently also opened up a new front in its attack on Powell, with officials criticising a $2.5bn renovation of the central bank\u2019s Washington headquarters. <\/p>\n<p>Trump ally Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, last week accused the Fed chair of \u201cgrossly\u201d mismanaging an \u201costentatious\u201d renovation that was $700mn over budget. <\/p>\n<p>Powell has described claims of excesses regarding the rebuild as \u201cinaccurate\u201d and said in congressional hearings that many of the features laid out in the original plans \u2014 including special elevators, beehives and roof terraces \u2014 had been scrapped.<\/p>\n<p>Worries over the Fed\u2019s independence have been bubbling on Wall Street. JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon, one of the most influential executives in US finance, on Tuesday warned \u201cthe independence of the Fed is absolutely critical \u2014 and not just for the current Fed chair, whom I respect, Jay Powell, but for the next Fed chair\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cPlaying around with the Fed can often have adverse consequences, the absolute opposite of what you might be hoping for.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The Fed declined to comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/47f3fc7d-7952-456e-b64a-a05304d912d0\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}