Conservative majority appears eager to hand president greater power – with one exception: the US central bank
Donald Trump has tried his usual tactics when it comes to getting the US Federal Reserve to lower interest rates: bully when persuasion doesn’t work, and then fire when bullying doesn’t work.
In an unprecedented assault on the central bank, the president has called the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, “stupid” and threatened to fire him for not cutting interest rates as quickly as Trump would like. Most recently, the justice department instigated a criminal investigation against Powell for testimony he gave about renovations at the Fed’s headquarters. Even so, the Fed has not budged.
Tactically, Trump’s assault on the Fed appears to be no different than his overhaul of the entire federal government. The president has learned if he pushes hard enough, he can get his way. And he has mostly been successful.
But with the Fed, it seems that Trump may have met his match. At least as far as the supreme court is concerned. On Wednesday, the court’s justices, in oral arguments, appeared resoundingly skeptical of Trump’s firing of the Fed governor Lisa Cook.
