Just hours before the Fed is expected to keep rates unchanged and, worse, telegraph a hawkish bias by indicating just one rate cut for the rest of 2025 (down from two) in its latest dot plot, the first since Liberation Day, President Trump leveled his latest broadside at Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
With markets and economists widely expecting the Fed to stand pat on rates, Trump acknowledged that, saying: “I don’t expect anything” but in his brief remarks at the White House, Trump also wondered aloud if he was “allowed to appoint myself” at the Fed, claiming he’d do a “much better job” than Powell, whom the president appointed in 2018, and whom he slammed as a numbskull in his most recent public comments.
“Am I allowed to appointment myself at the Fed,” he continued. “I’d do a much better job than these people.”
“He just refuses to lower rates. I don’t even think he’s political, I think he hates me. He probably should, I call him every name in the book to try and get him to cut” Trump lamented.
President Trump on Fed Chair Powell: “We have a stupid person, frankly, at the Fed. He probably won’t cut today…Maybe I should go to the Fed. Am I allowed to appoint myself at the Fed?” pic.twitter.com/AXA9maxJou
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 18, 2025
Trump has frequently targeted Powell’s decisions and repeated that he wants the Fed to cut rates, with today going so far as to demand a 2.5% rate cut from Powell (which in typical Trump fashion is more of a negotiating position than an actual ask.)
Responding to a question on Iran, Trump said that it’s not too late to strike a ceasefire deal, adding that caveat that “nothing is too late. The only thing too late is Powell. Powell is too late. Too late Powell.”
“I would have never reappointed him. Biden reappointed him. I don’t know why that is. But I guess maybe he was a Democrat,” Trump said Wednesday of Powell, who counts himself a Republican even if his wife is reportedly suffering from a raging case of TDS.
“You know, I got great advice from Mnuchin on this one,” he said of former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was the driving force behind Powell’s nomination.
Meanwhile, markets are abuzz with chatter that Trump will announce a replacement for Powell soon, in what would amount to a “shadow” Fed chair. Powell’s term runs until May 15, 2026.
The next Fed chair is widely expected to make an extra effort to bring down interest rates, given how Trump has pushed for that repeatedly. But analysts warn that announcing the pick this summer – an unusually early rollout – could hurt the economy and markets. According to Polymarket, Kevin Hassett has a slight lead on Kevin Warsh in odds for the nomination for next Fed chair.
U.S. stocks were heading higher mid-morning as Wall Street awaited the Fed and monitored the conflict between Iran and Israel.
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