Trump renews Powell feud over rate decision, fed renovation

Catherine Lucey, Bloomberg News on Jul 31, 2025

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President Donald Trump resumed his criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell after the central bank declined to cut interest rates, ending a short-lived détente.

“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell has done it again!!! He is TOO LATE, and actually, TOO ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL, to have the job of Fed Chair,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Thursday, assailing the bank for holding rates steady yet again.

And Trump hammered Powell over a construction project to renovate the central bank that has drawn the ire of the president and allies over cost overruns — just a week after he toured the site and appeared to downplay some concerns over the work there. He also reiterated his complaints about the Fed’s high rate setting boosting the government’s debt-interest bill.

“He is costing our Country TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS, in addition to one of the most incompetent, or corrupt, renovations of a building(s) in the history of construction!,” Trump said. “Put another way,“Too Late” is a TOTAL LOSER, and our Country is paying the price!”

The comments come after Fed officials left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday but downgraded their view of the US economy, signaling that policymakers could be edging closer to lowering borrowing costs.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday he expected Trump to be able to announce Powell’s replacement by the end of the year.

“We are putting together a very good list of candidates,” he told CNBC. “I would expect that we could have an announcement by the end of the year.”

Bessent noted that while Powell’s time on the board could continue for two years past his tenure as chair, it would be “highly unusual for a chair to stay on.”

And the Treasury secretary pointed to the dissenting voices in Wednesday’s decision and to two scheduled openings on the Fed board early next year.

“We had the first two dissents for several decades. So it looks like there’s already a schism in the board. So you know, there would be two more voters,” he said. “We would have a majority of the board,” he added, appearing to refer to advocates for cutting rates.

Trump in recent days had appeared to tone down his attacks on Powell following a rare — and in many ways unprecedented — visit by a sitting president to the central bank headquarters to tour the renovation project, in which he stood side-by-side with the central bank chief. While Trump has long hammered Powell over the bank’s rate-setting policies, the construction work had provided a new weapon for the president’s allies to raise pressure on the chair.

In the weeks ahead of the visit, Trump had quizzed lawmakers about whether he should fire Powell and then told reporters that he had no intention of doing so, suggesting he was willing to wait until the bank chief’s term as chair ends in May.

On Wednesday, Powell leaned into the view that the Fed is well-positioned for now, given lingering uncertainties surrounding the economic impact of Trump’s tariffs. His message was carefully balanced, tempering expectations for a September rate cut, but not closing the door to one.

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—With assistance from Daniel Flatley and Christopher Anstey.