President-elect Donald Trump said he has no plans to replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell once he returns to the White House, saying “I don’t see it.”
“I think if I told him to, he would,” Trump said on NBC’s Meet the Press, his first network television network since winning the US election in November. “But if I asked him to, he probably wouldn’t.”
Powell made it clear within days of the election that he’s ready to defend the Fed’s independence from political pressure, telling reporters he wouldn’t step aside if Trump asked for his resignation and insisting the incoming president doesn’t have the power to fire him or other senior Fed leaders.
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Trump has previously said he should have a say in monetary policy and the setting of interest rates. “I think I have the right to say, ‘I think you should go up or down a little bit.’ I don’t think I should be allowed to order it,” Trump said in a Bloomberg News interview in October. “But I think I have the right to put in comments as to whether or not interest rates should go up or down.”
Trump also ridiculed the Fed chair’s role as “the greatest job in government,” saying, “You show up to the office once a month, and you say, ‘Let’s see, flip a coin.’”
In the NBC interview transcript released Sunday, Trump was responding to a question about Powell’s statement refusing to step down if asked to. While Trump appointed Powell, he tried to fire him during his first term in office after the Fed hiked interest rates a number of times.
Powell, for his part, has said he doesn’t expect tensions with the incoming administration.
