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.
