President Donald Trump, right, announces Federal Reserve board member Jerome Powell, left, as his nominee for the next chair of the Federal Reserve in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017President Donald Trump said he told Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell that interest rates were too high in a rare meeting between the two on Monday.
But the late-night tweet more closely reflected an unprecedented pressure campaign the president launched against Powell ahead of the 2020 elections.President Donald Trump said he told Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell that interest rates were too high in a rare meeting between the two on Monday, escalating months of pressure on the independent central bank.
Both sides initially issued positive readouts of the White House meeting, which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also attended. But the late-night tweet more closely reflected an unprecedented pressure campaign the president has launched against Powell ahead of the 2020 elections. Trump has lashed out at his hand-picked Fed chief several times since the central bank signaled that a recent string of interest-rate cuts could be over. The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee last lowered borrowing costs in October, bringing them to a historically low range of between 1.5% and 1.75%.