April 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump called for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lose his job Thursday, while pushing for the central bank to cut interest rates.
“Jerome Powell of the Fed,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Thursday, “Who is always too late and wrong, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete mess!”
The “report” Powell issued Wednesday was an economic outlook speech delivered at the Economic Club of Chicago, and he gave his thoughts in regard to the “Liberation Day” tariffs Trump levied on several countries earlier in April.
“The level of the tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated,” Powell said. “The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth. Both survey and market-based measures of near-term inflation expectations have moved up significantly, with survey participants pointing to tariffs.”
Trump ended his post by saying “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”
Powell, who was originally nominated to his Federal Reserve Chair post in 2018 by Trump, has said in the past that the president does not legally have the power to fire him.
The 1913 Federal Reserve Act states that the Fed Chair is to serve “from the expiration of the term of his predecessor, unless sooner removed for cause by the president.”
However, the Federal Reserve, as explained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a regional bank in the Federal Reserve System, is accountable to Congress but “was created as an independent central bank.”
It goes on to state that “Federal Reserve officials cannot be fired simply because the president or a member of Congress disagrees with Federal Reserve decisions about interest rates.”
The Federal Reserve describes itself as “an independent government agency but also one that is ultimately accountable to the public and the Congress.”
