(Reuters) – Newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he will not seek to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell when he takes office in January.
“No, I don’t think so,” Trump said in an interview on NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.’ He told Welker when asked if he would replace Powell, with whom he has sparred in the past over interest rate levels: “I think if I told him [go]he would. But if I asked him, he probably wouldn’t.”
Last month, Powell said he would refuse to leave office early if Trump tried to oust him, arguing that removing him, or any of the other Fed governors, before the end of their terms “ is not permitted under the law”.
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Trump appointed Powell as Fed chair in early 2018, replacing Janet Yellen, who later became President Joe Biden’s Treasury secretary. Biden reappointed Powell to his current term.
But the relationship between Trump and Powell turned sour, with Trump regularly attacking the Fed and its chief over the central bank’s policy choices during his first term.
Trump’s Fed attacks followed decades of presidents refraining from direct criticism of the central bank, which operates with legal independence and is subject to congressional oversight.
(Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
