{"id":242735,"date":"2026-01-13T18:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/242735\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T18:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:57:09","slug":"jerome-powell-stands-his-ground-amid-trumps-attack-on-federal-reserve-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/242735\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerome Powell stands his ground amid Trump\u2019s attack on Federal Reserve \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt was terrific. What can I say?\u201d Jerome Powell told the House Financial Services Committee in the summer of 2023, when invited to elaborate on his eye-catching attendance at a concert by the rock band Dead & Company in Virginia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a Grateful Dead<\/a> fan for 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was as close as the low-key chairman of the Federal Reserve<\/a> has come to allowing the public behind the curtain. And the Deadhead fandom placed Powell, who at 72 finds himself the latest public servant to come under investigation by the Trump department of justice, among that generation of Americans who came of age in the early 1970s. <\/p>\n

On Sunday, Powell released what was, for him, an unprecedented outburst, which took the form of a two-minute video calmly and frostily rejecting the allegations that he lied to Congress about the scope of ongoing renovations to the Fed\u2019s Eccles building in his most recent appearance last summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not about Congress\u2019s oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JeromeJerome Powell testifies during a Senate hearing in Washington in February 2025. Photograph: Haiyun Jiang\/New York Times<\/p>\n

If Trump\u2019s new year\u2019s resolution has been a general escalation of everything, then the latest attempt to nudge Powell into using his chairmanship to further lower interest rates or, better still, to force him off the board, is part of a larger narrative. <\/p>\n

Trump has said that he knew nothing about the US Department of Justice\u2019s decision to launch the investigation into Powell\u2019s remarks about the $2.7 billion renovation of the Federal Reserve building on Constitution Avenue. But Trump\u2019s criticisms of Powell began as soon he returned to office last January, with regular social media and spoken tirades labelling the chairman a \u201cnumbskull\u201d, a \u201cmoron\u201d and \u201cvery dumb\u201d, insults to which Powell responded with blithe indifference and a refusal to bend to the wishes of the president.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0And the next US Federal Reserve chairman is … Donald Trump \u2013 in all but nameOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Trump had discovered that Powell was invulnerable to pressure or persuasion during his first term after he himself chose the finance veteran to replace Janet Yellen, who had been Barack Obama\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am confident that Jay has the wisdom and leadership to guide our economy through any challenges,\u201d Trump said then. <\/p>\n

\"DonaldDonald Trump introducing Jerome Powell as his nominee to chair the Federal Reserve in 2017. Photograph: Tom Brenner\/New York Times <\/p>\n

He was appointing the quintessential Washingtonian: an affluent Chevy Chase upbringing; Princeton, Georgetown Law School, investment banking and private equity and a first appointment to the Department of the Treasury by George H Bush in 1990, some 25 years before Donald Trump took a notion to enter politics. <\/p>\n

So, Powell had a full quarter of a century to assert himself as a straight shooter through successive Republican and Democratic administrations, which was clear in the dissent offered by a number of significant senior Republican figures who pointed out the disastrous implications of the administration meddling with the decisions of the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know chairman Powell pretty well,\u201d said John Kennedy, the Republican senator from Louisiana, on Monday. \u201cI would be stunned; I would be shocked if he has done anything wrong. I understand that some folks have gone on television and accused the chairman of perjury. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is America. You can say what you think. But a perjury allegation, particularly to the United States Congress, is a serious allegation. It\u2019s as serious as four heart attacks and a stroke. And if you make an allegation like that, by God you better be prepared to back it up. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States economy is doing well. But it is fragile. Our labour market right now is fragile. Cost of living is still an issue. When moms and dads lie down and try to sleep at night and can\u2019t, cost of living is one of the things they are worried about.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you wanted to design a system to cause interest rates to go up and not down, you would have the Federal Reserve of the United States and the executive branch of the United States get into a pissing contest. We don\u2019t need it. We need it like we need a hole in the head. And everybody needs to take their meds and step back a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other Republican criticisms followed, with Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski dismissing the investigation as \u201cnothing more than an attempt at coercion\u201d while North Carolina senator Thom Tillis weighed in to say that \u201cit is the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"RepublicanRepublican senator Thom Tillis has criticised the Trump administration\u2019s move to open a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell. Photograph: Kenny Holston\/ew York Times<\/p>\n

Tillis vowed to use his seat on the banking committee to block all considerations for the Federal Reserve board until the investigation into Powell concludes.<\/p>\n

When Trump and Powell toured the Federal Reserve building last summer, both wearing suits and white hard hats, Trump caused the finance veteran\u2019s eyes to widen when he claimed the overall costs had jumped to $3.2 billion. The astronomical costs were attributed to the associated expenses of upgrading a vast 1930s-era building to 21st-century standards.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The moment Jerome Powell stood up to Trump a reminder how few dare to contradict himOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Powell shook his head at the revised figure. Trump handed him a piece of paper that had been folded in his breast pocket. Momentarily perplexed, Powell scanned the document and told Trump: \u201cIt came from the Martin renovation. You just added in a third building, is what that is,\u201d handing the sheaf back to the president as though he were an errant student.<\/p>\n

\"USUS president Donald Trump presents a document to Jerome Powell while touring a construction project at the Federal Reserve. Photograph: Haiyun Jiang\/New York Times <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a building that\u2019s being built,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. It was built five years ago,\u201d Powell persisted.<\/p>\n

That exchange took place in Trump\u2019s preferred domain: before the television cameras. But Powell did not blink then, and he has not blinked now. This latest attack may prompt him to further defy Trump by remaining on the board after his term as chair concludes in May.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, statements of solidarity and support were issued by 11 central bank chiefs, including the ECB and Bank of England. All vouched for Powell\u2019s integrity. After the jaw-dropping military success of the US intervention in Venezuela and international fears over his grand designs on Greenland to open year two of his second term in office, Trump has once again been stopped in his tracks by the obdurate Washingtonian he must wish he had never appointed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt was terrific. What can I say?\u201d Jerome Powell told the House Financial Services Committee in the summer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,969,1961,61,60,3162,90],"class_list":{"0":"post-242735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-federal-reserve","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-jerome-powell","14":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}