Former President Donald Trump said that he would not reappoint Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
In an interview with Fox Business Network on Thursday, Trump told host Larry Kudlow that he would not renominate Powell to lead the Fed should he win the presidential election in 2024.
“I would not reappoint him. I thought he was always late, whether it was good or bad, but he was always late,” the former president told Kudlow, who served as a top economic official during the Trump administration.
Trump previously nominated Powell to lead the central bank in 2018 before souring on him due to hiking interest rates. He was later renominated by President Joe Biden for a second four-year term after taking office, and the Senate confirmed him by a vote of 80-19 last May.
“I was surprised he was reappointed. Probably he got reappointed because they knew I didn’t like him much,” Trump said in the interview, which was recorded on Wednesday. “I’m not a fan of Jay Powell.”
Powell, who is a Republican, was appointed by former President Barack Obama to the Fed board in 2012, and Trump chose him in 2017 to succeed now-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Over the course of his first term, Powell garnered wide-ranging bipartisan support for both defying Trump’s urge to slash interest rates while the economy was strong and for the Fed’s largely successful effort to stabilize financial markets amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
This comes as the labor market has remained tight despite all odds. The number of jobs available continues to fall short of the demand for workers, which could imbalance salaries and force businesses to boost their pricing to cover the additional labor costs.
“The Fed was lulled into believing that inflation was short-lived in 2021,” said KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk. “Then inflation reversed course and rose. … They don’t want another head fake by declaring victory too soon; they have already eaten crow on that.”
Swonk also noted that financial markets are “front-running the Fed,” which continues to stimulate the economy and runs the risk of reflating the economy at a critical juncture. Investors hope that the central bank will stop raising rates, which have given financial markets a boost recently.
