The Blubber

President Donald Trump delivered a blistering critique of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday, calling him a "numbskull" and floating the idea that he may have to “force something” on the central bank—though he offered few specifics on what that might involve.

Speaking during a bill signing in the East Room to undo California’s vehicle emissions rules, Trump repeated his demand that Powell cut interest rates, and again addressed the idea of firing the Fed chair, whom he appointed in 2017.

“The fake news is saying ‘oh, if you fired him, it would be so bad. It would be so bad.’ I don’t know why it would be so bad. But I’m not going to fire him,” Trump said. “I just want him to—you know, we call him ‘too late,’” referring to a nickname he’s used for Powell, based on the belief that rate cuts should have already occurred.

In a rambling portion of his remarks, Trump turned to the financial implications of the Fed’s actions:

“We’ve got a lot of press. We’ve got a lot of cameras rolling right now, not that I like doing it ’cause I don’t. But if we take, if we cut our interest by one point, for years we save $300 billion. If we cut it by two points we save… $600 billion a year, $600 billion because of one numbskull that sits here, ‘I don’t see enough reason to cut the rates.’ No.”

Trump said that in a recent meeting with Powell, he had urged the Fed chair to cut rates now and emphasized that he would only support rate hikes if inflation were to spike again.

“What is he doing? Why doesn’t he lower these rates?” Trump asked.

He went on to suggest vaguely that he may need to take action:

“I may have to force something,” he said. “Somebody said, ‘who’s the genius who thought of that?’ I said, ‘it’s me’… but, I had an idea, I gave it. They said, ‘this is really— we’ll go short term for a year, let this guy get out of office, somebody will come in and cut it a couple of points.’”

It's unclear whether Trump’s “force something” comment signals renewed consideration of firing Powell or refers to another executive mechanism to influence interest rate policy.