Trump’s Political Drama With Powell Overshadows Fed Rate Decision

For Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, the past month has probably felt like a political eternity.

He has spent much of the time under siege from President Trump, who has resorted again to name-calling in a bid to force down interest rates.

He has been subjected to a new federal investigation, the likes of which forced the notoriously cautious Fed chair to raise a rare public alarm about the future of the central bank.

And Mr. Powell has sat in the audience of the Supreme Court while it weighed the fate of one of his colleagues — a fellow Fed governor whom Mr. Trump has tried to oust on fraud charges that have never actually been filed or prosecuted.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/business/economy/fed-trump-powell-interest-rates.html