{"id":521857,"date":"2026-01-17T03:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T03:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/521857\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T03:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T03:37:13","slug":"down-arrow-button-icon-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/521857\/","title":{"rendered":"Down Arrow Button Icon"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump has spent his second term bulldozing elected and\u00a0appointed<\/a>\u00a0officials who resist him or refuse to bend to his demands. But he may have met his match in Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.<\/p>\n

As the Trump administration ramps up its pressure campaign against the central bank \u2014 now including\u00a0Justice Department subpoenas<\/a>\u00a0and the threat of criminal charges \u2014 Senate Republicans\u00a0have closed ranks<\/a> around Powell, defending an independent Fed chair under attack from a president of their own party.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Chairman Powell very well. I will be stunned \u2014 I will be shocked \u2014 if he has done anything wrong,\u201d said GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, one of Trump\u2019s most reliable allies in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Soon after the Justice Department served subpoenas on the Fed, Powell went on the offensive, releasing a\u00a0video statement<\/a>\u00a0accusing the administration of using \u201cpretexts\u201d to pressure the central bank into sharply cutting interest rates, as Trump\u00a0has demanded<\/a>. The 72-year-old Fed chair also leaned on Capitol Hill relationships he has cultivated since his 2018 appointment, holding multiple calls with Republican senators in the days following the video\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knows his way around Congress,\u201d said Robert Tetlow, a former senior policy adviser at the Fed. \u201cHe gets in there, pets the dog, shoots the breeze, and has a way of getting people to like him, and he\u2019s really good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For some in Congress, it\u2019s personal<\/p>\n

In a March 2024 hearing, Powell received an unusual greeting from a member of the Senate Banking Committee: The office dog had said hello.<\/p>\n

\u201cGus sends his regards,\u201d said Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican. \u201cIf you have time after the hearing, you ought to go by and see him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to disturb his nap,\u201d Powell said to laughter in the hearing room.<\/p>\n

Now, Tillis \u2014 who is retiring at the end of this year \u2014 has been among the Republicans rushing to Powell\u2019s defense, vowing to withhold support for any Trump administration nominees to the Federal Reserve until the legal cloud surrounding the chair is resolved.<\/p>\n

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski put her support behind Tillis\u2019 plan to block nominees. She was among the multiple Republican senators who said they spoke with Powell after his video statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at the situation with Jay Powell and this supposed investigation of the overhaul of their offices going over there as grounds to do nothing but intimidate, threaten and coerce,\u201d Murkowski told reporters. Powell goes by \u201cJay\u201d informally.<\/p>\n

Murkowski and Tillis have not shied away from critiquing the Trump administration in recent months. What makes the Powell backlash unique is that even reliable Trump allies \u2014 and opponents of the Fed\u2019s recent decisions \u2014 have rushed to the Fed chair\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe strongly in an independent Federal Reserve,\u201d said Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick<\/a>, who also sits on the Senate Banking Committee. The first-term senator added that he agrees \u201cwith President Trump that Chairman Powell has been slow to cut interest rates\u201d but said he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink Chairman Powell is guilty of criminal activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that the investigation \u201cbetter be real\u201d and \u201cbetter be serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the House, Financial Services Chair French Hill criticized the Justice Department\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Mr. Powell to be a man of integrity with a strong commitment to public service,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile over the years we have had our policy disagreements, I found him to be forthright, candid, and a person of the highest integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decades of service in Washington<\/p>\n

Hill also said in his statement that he has \u201cknown Chairman Powell since we worked together at Treasury during the George H.W. Bush Administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powell, a Republican, has been a fixture in the nation\u2019s capital for decades, where he developed a reputation as a centrist. He worked at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, from 2010 to 2012 and pushed congressional Republicans toward compromise during their budget battles with President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Obama, in turn, appointed Powell to the Fed\u2019s governing board in 2012. Trump then elevated him to the Chair position in 2018. He was reappointed by President Joe Biden in 2022.<\/p>\n

Powell also built up credibility among Republicans in the House and Senate by largely ignoring Trump\u2019s personal attacks during the president\u2019s first term in office, when he complained about rate hikes by Powell in 2018. In general, Powell has tried to keep his head down and avoid a back-and-forth with the White House. A solid economy \u2014 at least until the COVID pandemic struck \u2014 also helped protect the Fed during Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n

Powell has often cited support on Capitol Hill as a counterweight to Trump\u2019s attacks. At a news conference last July, Powell discussed the importance of distancing the Fed from \u201cdirect political control,\u201d because that allows the central bank to take unpopular steps such as raising interest rates to thwart inflation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s pretty widely understood,\u201d he said. \u201cCertainly, it is in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powell\u2019s public schedule underscores his commitment to staying connected with Congress. In the month following Trump\u2019s inauguration last year, he met with or spoke by phone with 27 senators from both parties, according to his schedule.<\/p>\n

After testifying before the Senate Banking Committee about the renovation of Fed buildings in June of last year, Powell followed up with the chair, Tim Scott, and the ranking member, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, about the cost of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs is to be expected in the major renovation of nearly 100-year-old historic buildings, the Board\u2019s designs have continued to evolve over the course of the project,\u201d wrote Powell.<\/p>\n

The accusations against Powell<\/p>\n

The subpoenas served to the Fed relate to Powell\u2019s comments about the $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, which Trump has criticized as excessive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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 Powell said in a video statement.<\/p>\n

Trump has insisted he was unaware of the investigation into Powell. When asked by CBS News whether the subpoenas were a form of retribution, Trump said Tuesday, \u201cI can\u2019t help what it looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has gone after several officials he sees as having done him wrong, including an attempted firing of another Fed board member,\u00a0Lisa Cook<\/a>. The Supreme Court has allowed Cook to keep her job and will hold a hearing on her case on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

But not all of Trump\u2019s efforts are sticking, with federal inquiries against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James tossed out by the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far it looks like this has been a misstep for the administration,\u201d said Lev Menand, a law professor at Columbia University and author of a book about the Fed. \u201cThis attempt to go after Jay Powell with a potential criminal indictment is leading to significant resistance from elected officials even within the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump has spent his second term bulldozing elected and\u00a0appointed\u00a0officials who resist him or refuse to bend…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":521858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,1597,142,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-521857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-federal-reserve","10":"tag-jerome-powell","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115908355282667876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}