President Trump is trying to make Jerome Powell “live in as soon as possible” because he increases pressure on the chairman of the Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates or leave the central bank, a reporter who has participated in Trump which was confirmed this week.
“I am skeptical he will fire Powell – he might; obviously, everything might happen,” said New York Times reporter, Maggie Haberman, told CNN “The Source” on Thursday night. “But in the meantime, he will make his life as successful as possible, or at least as sad as the president who thinks it can, behave like this.”
Trump told reporters on Friday morning that he did not plan to fire Powell but once again criticized him for not adjusting interest rates.
“I think he did a terrible job,” Trump said before leaving the White House for a trip to Texas, which was flooded. “I think we have to be 3 points lower, interest rates. He spends a lot of money to our country.”
“We must be No. 1, and we are not, and that is because of Jerome Powell,” Trump added.
Haberman said in CNN that he had heard the names of floating as a possible substitute for Powell.
“Always worthy of reminding people … The president points to Jay Powell,” he said. “This is not someone forced to him. This is his pointing, before.”
The Supreme Court decided in May that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve was protected from the transfer without cause.
Top White House officials have since increased the attack on Powell, with a focus on renovating the Central Bank’s office worth $ 2.5 billion and questioning its management.
Trump’s main budget advisor, Russell Vough, openly distributed a letter on Thursday that he wrote to Powell implying that the ongoing renovation change from the 90-year-old Marriner S. Eccles building, which functioned as the headquarters of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC, could violate the law.
“The Fed has been wrongly managed,” Vought told reporters at the White House on Friday, mentioning the renovation of the building “terrible from the cost perspective.”
Powell told Senator in June that several elements approved by the National Capital Planning Commission in 2021 had been changed or had been misinterpreted in the latest report.
“There is no VIP dining room; there is no new marble – we lower the old marble, and we put it back,” Powell testified, acknowledged that some new marble segments were only needed to replace damaged pieces.
“There is no new water feature; there is no beehive, and there is no roof terrace park,” continued Powell.
Vough on Friday compared the renovation work with the luxurious Versailles Palace in France.
“That might meet the requirements as one of the eight wonders of the ancient world if you can return that far,” he told reporters.
