In his first broadcast interview since the election, President-elect Donald Trump put to bed the notion he’d try to fire the chair of the Federal Reserve before his term expires in 2026. NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump during the hour-long exchange if he would try to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
“No, I don’t think so,” Trump replied. “I think if I told him to, he would, but if I asked him to, he probably wouldn’t, but if I told him to, he would.”
“You don’t have plans to do that, right?” Welker followed up.
“No, I don’t,” Trump responded.
Trump’s response implies Powell is safe in his seat, not that he had any plans to leave. After the election, a reporter asked Powell if he would leave his post if Trump asked him to.
“No,” Powell said.
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Trump first appointed Powell to chair the Fed during his first term. However, that relationship quickly soured when Trump disagreed with the Fed’s interest rate moves.
“I put a very good man in the Fed,” Trump said in 2018. “I don’t necessarily agree with it, because he’s raising interest rates.”
The relationship soon became downright contentious. Since then, President Joe Biden nominated Powell for a second term as chair, which means his term is not up until 2026, well into Trump’s second term.
Trump has repeatedly said he believes he could do a better job than the Federal Reserve. He said he also wants a bigger say in Fed decisions.
“I made a lot of money, I was very successful, and I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman,” he said in August 2024.
“I think it’s the greatest job in government,” Trump said in October 2024. “You show up to the office once a month and you say, ‘Let’s see, flip a coin.’ And everybody talks about you like you’re a god.”
“He’s right. The part about it being the greatest job, it might well be right,” Powell said during the Dealbook summit in December 2024. “He’s partly right there, but he’s not right about the come to work, you know, once every month.”
Powell added, “It’s not like that,” when asked about the flip-a-coin part. In that sit-down, Powell talked with Dealbook’s Andrew Ross Sorkin about navigating another Trump term and his cabinet picks, in particular, Trump’s Treasury choice, Scott Bessent.
In an interview with Barron’s, Bessent detailed a way to cut off Powell at the knees.
“You could do the earliest Fed nomination and create a shadow Fed chair,” Bessent told Barron’s. “And based on the concept of forward guidance, no one is really going to care what Jerome Powell has to say anymore.”
“I don’t think that’s on the table at all,” Powell said.
He described the critical relationship that the Fed chair and Treasury secretary must maintain, especially in times of crisis. He shared that the two people in these leadership positions have had weekly meals together for 75 years.
Powell’s term ends on May 15, 2026. Former Fed governor Kevin Warsh is among the candidates to replace him. Warsh was recently passed over for Trump’s Treasury secretary.
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