The Federal Reserve said that Jerome Powell met with Donald Trump Thursday “at the president’s invitation,” and the White House said the president told the central bank boss that he is making a mistake by not lowering rates.
The face-to-face encounter follows months of Powell criticism from Trump and pressure on the Fed to ease monetary policy.
Read more: How the Fed rate decision affects your bank accounts, loans, credit cards, and investments
The Fed said in a statement that Powell met with the president to discuss “economic developments including for growth, employment, and inflation.”
Powell, according to the Fed, “did not discuss his expectations for monetary policy, except to stress that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook.”
The chair said he and his colleagues on the Fed’s rate-setting committee will make decisions about monetary policy “based solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis,” the Fed added in its statement.
The White House confirmed the Powell meeting, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters that the Fed’s summary was correct but noting that the president pushed Powell to lower rates.
“The president did say that he believes the Fed chair is making a mistake by not lowering interest rates, which is putting us at an economic disadvantage to China and other countries,” she said, adding Trump has been very vocal about his views publicly as well.
The encounter comes after Yahoo Finance asked Powell during a May 7 press conference why he hadn’t asked for a meeting with the president amid great uncertainty about the path forward for the economy.
“I’ve never asked for a meeting with any president, and I never will,” he said, adding that it is not up to the Fed chair to seek out an audience with the occupant of the Oval Office.
“It always comes the other way: ‘A president wants to meet with you,’ but that hasn’t happened.”
As during his first term in office, Trump has been a vocal critic of Powell, repeatedly encouraging the Fed chair to cut interest rates. Powell has urged caution and patience on rates, saying he expects Trump’s tariffs to push inflation higher and drag down growth — putting the Fed in a challenging spot.
Earlier this month the central bank elected to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged in a range of 4.25%-4.50%.
Following that meeting, Trump on social media called the central bank boss a “fool” who “doesn’t have a clue.” The president added during an Oval Office press conference on May 8 that he didn’t plan to meet with Powell, saying, “It’s like talking to a wall.”
Despite harsh barbs from Trump that have included calling Powell a “major loser,” the president has been clear that despite, in his view, having the authority to fire Powell, Trump has no plans to remove Powell from office.
Trump nominated Powell as Fed chair during his first term in office, and President Biden nominated Powell for a second term leading the central bank in 2021.
Powell’s term as Fed chair is set to expire next May; his term on the Fed’s Board of Governors runs through January 2028. Trump has held private talks with a potential replacement for Powell, former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Supreme Court last week went out of its way to protect Fed officials from any Trump firings even as it allowed the president to remove the board members of two other independent agencies, potentially insulating Powell against any immediate pink slip from the White House.
Powell, for his part, has repeatedly stressed that his firing is not permitted by law.
The White House press secretary said that at Thursday’s meeting, Trump did not discuss his plans for replacing Powell after his term ends or even firing Powell.
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