Powell, Mnuchin kept in touch in January – not so much for Trump

The chair of the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury secretary spent a lot of time with each other in January, relative to the past year and second only to November, according to the calendar of the central bank’s leader.

The calendar for Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. (“Jay”) Powell, released Monday by the Fed, shows that he and Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin held three breakfast meetings, and held one phone call, during January. The total time spent: 190 minutes.

That’s the most time the two have spent together, based on Powell’s calendars, since November when they met for 195 minutes during breakfast and lunch meetings. A year earlier, in January 2019, the two also met for 190 minutes.

Conspicuously absent from Powell’s calendar: meetings or phone calls with President Donald Trump, who has been a vocal critic of the Fed Board chair and the Fed’s actions over interest rates. For a four-month run in the spring of last year, Powell and Trump spoke at least once a month in a meeting or series of five-minute phone calls, according to Powell’s calendar. Then – nothing (meetings or phone calls) until November, when the two had a 30-minute call. Since then, the president and chair have not spoken, according to the calendar.

Powell and White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow did get together for lunch in January for a one-hour lunch, according to the calendar.

Chair Jerome H. Powell January 2020 Calendar