President Donald Trump said Wednesday it was ‘highly unlikely’ he would fire Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve.
His statements, made in the Oval Office, come less than 24 hours after telling a room full of Republican lawmakers that he was considering doing so.
“No, we’re not planning on doing anything,” Trump told reporters in response to a question about whether he wanted to fire Powell.
“I don’t rule out anything but I think it’s highly unlikely unless he has to leave for fraud,” Trump said, while criticizing Powell’s management of a Fed renovation project that the White House had recently floated as a pretext for removing the Fed chair.
The president had asked GOP lawmakers late Tuesday how they felt about firing the Fed chair, according to a senior White House official. They expressed approval for firing him. The president then indicated he likely would soon but that no final decision had been made.
Still, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., posted on X on Tuesday night that Powell’s firing was ‘imminent,’ something that prompted a sell-off in stock futures before Wednesday’s market open. By noon Wednesday, major stock indexes had recovered to trade almost flat on the day.
CBS News first reported the meeting. A Fed official declined comment to CNBC on the report about the Trump meeting Tuesday, which came after Republicans blocked a procedural vote on crypto legislation that the president favors.
Trump and other White House figures have launched a multipronged attack on Powell to push the central bank to lower its key borrowing rate. Most recently, they have blasted Powell over renovations to the Fed’s Washington headquarters, raising suspicion that Trump could try to remove him for cause.
A recent Supreme Court decision indicated that the president does not have the authority to remove Fed officials at will.
In a CNBC interview Wednesday, Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, repeated that “I don’t see” Trump firing Powell. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also told Bloomberg News on Tuesday that he didn’t expect Trump to move in that direction.
However, Luna, who on Tuesday joined with other party members in blocking the crypto initiative, said on X that a move against Powell is forthcoming.
“Hearing Jerome Powell is getting fired! From a very serious source,” she said, later adding, “I’m 99% sure firing is imminent.”