Jerome Powell used his first public appearance since the conclusion of his term as Federal Reserve chairman to take a barely veiled swipe at the Trump administration for what he perceived as a threat to the central bank’s independence.
In a Sunday night speech during an award ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston, Powell did not mention Trump by name but clearly referred to the challenges that the administration placed on the central bank.
“Like many other institutions, the Fed has been undergoing a stress test,” Powell said in accepting the 2026 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. “Congress wisely chose to insulate monetary policy decisions from political pressure. All other advanced economy nations have done the same. Our federated structure is a bit complex, but the legal protections that support the non-political conduct of monetary policy are straightforward. Fed governors and Reserve Bank presidents hold office with legal protection against removal. We serve long terms unrelated to the four-year presidential election cycle.”
Powell also made reference to a new effort by the Fed’s Office of the Inspector General to review the process that the Fed’s board of governors approves the reappointment of regional Fed leaders. Powell has opted to stay on the board of governors since being replaced as chairman by Kevin Warsh.
“When a new administration takes office, its role is to fill vacancies on the Board of Governors, and for Chair and Vice Chair, as and when they arise, subject in all cases to Senate confirmation. Administrations play no role in the selection or oversight of the 12 Reserve Bank presidents,” he continued. “These protections have served the public well, and administrations from both parties have respected them.”
Powell also referenced the administration’s efforts to remove Fed Gov. Lisa Cook amid accusations that she committed mortgage fraud. Cook has not been charged with any crime, and she brought the administration’s actions to the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on her complaint this month.
“If any administration finds a way to remove Fed officials over policy differences, then future administrations will do so as well,” Powell said. “The public would lose faith that the central bank will make decisions based only on what’s best for all Americans. The Fed’s credibility would be lost. That credibility enables the Fed to support a strong and stable economy for the benefit of American families and businesses. Our credibility has been built and sustained over many decades, and we have a duty to safeguard that priceless asset for our fellow citizens and for generations to come.”
Photo of Jerome Powell during the award ceremony, courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation
Powell wasn’t independent. Of course, being a Democrat paritisan is what they call “independent”.
He is an idiot , printing all that money during covid has created all this inflation . The high interest rates have the housing market stuck in my area for years
He probably doesn’t know it yet, but my prediction is the Fed will be absorbed by the Treasury and eliminated. Our treasury is quit capable of handling our finances.
“Our credibility has been built and sustained over many decades.”
HA!, the only thing that the Fed has done over many decades is to distort credit markets and artificially suppress interest rates so that the .gov could run up a $39 Trillion dollar Fed credit card bill for future generations to pay for (and these younger generations are now paying for it in the form of super-charged inflation / stagflation, parabolically rising interest rates, and a worse misery index since the Great Depression.)
The Fed has served many: The world banksters, the financial & political elite, and the Baby Boom generation.
Everybody else from gen X, gen Y, and gen Z has been stuck paying for the Fed’s wealth-transfer policies.
You can’t simultaneously manipulate credit markets in the US and declare that the US is a free market economy. It isn’t and hasn’t been since the Fed first decided to monetize debt, allow corporate profits to be privatized but enable the losses to be socialized.
$2.75 Trillion dollars of mortgage-backed securities the Fed monetized up and into 2022; creating the biggest real estate bubble in all of history. And once the Fed stopped doing MBS QE in 2022, the bubble popped and the median US home value has fallen 9% since.
Make homes affordable again by prohibiting the Fed-Bankster market manipulators’ ability to buy US treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Let the Free Market be free.
Lets Review Immigration
Policy Many Years Ago
A Sponsor Was Required
Example In Order To Come And
Live InUSA
A Relative Living In USA Could
Provide A Place To Stay & Provide
Employment No Burden On The
Tax Payer Not Today In Addition
To Provide Responsibility They
Should Serve In The Military
Earn Your Keep
My guess is that not one of the above responders has a degree in economics or any other qualification to make comment on the Fed or Jerome Powell.
David FitzGerald I agree with your comment
Please do, that is if you qualify – you make comment if you have superior first hand education, experience – etc.
or at least taken a few college introductory classes in economics.
David FitzGerald. Yes, in fact, I do have an economics degree and I’m open to hearing any arguments that you have that dispute anything that I said. Go ahead, defend the Fed. And while you are at it, explain how the Fed has no tools to fight rising interest rates. The Fed said they had “tools”. They don’t; there’s no credibility in claiming that the did. Explain why the Fed can’t stop the 10-year treasury bond from crashing and has let the 10–30-year treasury bonds crash 50% since 2020. People’s pensions have been HEAVILY invested in those; maybe it’s not YOUR pension fund, but it’s millions of “someone’s” pension fund. And the US Treasury bond, the “safest and most liquid asset in the bond market” has just crashed as much as the hyper-speculated Bitcoin. Leaving pensioners with an up to 50% loss in the bond allocation segment of their retirement fund and add in 4% inflation (and rising) on top of that. Where’s the credibility in that? In what world does a US bond market crash as much as a crypto coin? Answer: A Fed Clown World.