REPORT: Trump Has Drafted A Letter To Fire Key Official

President Donald Trump has reportedly drafted a letter to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, setting the stage to follow through on a threat to try and terminate the top U.S. economist over his refusal to lower interest rates despite declining inflation and signs of a resilient economy.

The letter was shown to top Republican leaders during a meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday night. Roughly a dozen Republican lawmakers attended the briefing and were polled by Trump about whether he should remove Powell, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

Pending cryptocurrency legislation had brought the group together as Trump sought to allay fears by Republicans hesitant to support it, but the topic oscillated between legislating and executive action, sources told the NYT. Trump reportedly expressed his hatred for Powell, whom he appointed to the Fed chair in 2017, and suggested he still has the power to fire him despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to the contrary.

Until now, Trump has maintained that he does not intend to fire Powell, a sign that business leaders have been effective at lobbying him to avoid the certainty of wider economic uncertainty should he do so. That hasn’t stopped Trump from publicly reprimanding Powell each time he has cast aside the president’s demands to lower interest rates.

At a recent White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt held up a note scribbled by Trump and sent to Powell.

“‘Jerome, you are as usual ‘too late.’ You have cost the U.S. a fortune and continue to do so. You should lower the rate by a lot. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being lost, and there is no inflation,'” Leavitt read from the note.

Others close to President Trump simply framed his remarks as an attempt to troll Powell for failing to follow through on rate cuts that he teased last year amid healthy economic indicators. Powell’s optimism waned earlier this year following President Trump’s “Liberation Day” and a series of tariffs imposed on foreign nations worldwide.

Trump clarified his stance during a meeting with the crown prince of Bahrain on Wednesday, saying he is “not planning” to fire Powell at this time.

“I was surprised that he was appointed… that Biden put him in and extended him,” Trump said about his predecessor’s decision to keep Powell as head of the Fed.

“No, we’re not planning on doing anything. He’s doing a little renovation for $2.5 billion of the Fed, building a renovation and they have close to a $900 million cost overrun, and it’s a shame. But the biggest cost overrun is the cost overrun for interest rates, because we should be paying 3 points lower and we would be saving a trillion dollars a year,” Trump claimed.

WATCH:

Trump is well-known for citing the stock market as a sign of the U.S. economy’s health, and he has undoubtedly been warned that firing Powell would cause an earthquake, right as the economy appears to have absorbed the worst effects of his tariffs.

That hasn’t stopped MAGA allies from continuing to call for Powell to resign.

“Jerome Powell is going to be fired. Firing is imminent,” posted Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) earlier this month.