The chair of the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury secretary kept in relatively close contact in at the year’s beginning, according to the chair’s published calendar, but there was no contact with President Donald Trump (R ) recorded.
The February calendar for Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. (“Jay”) Powell is the most current schedule published on the agency’s website. It shows four times when Powell and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met either in person or by telephone during the month. Those meetings were:
- Monday, Feb. 3: telephone call (30 minutes);
- Tuesday, Feb. 4: telephone call (15 minutes);
- Wednesday, Feb. 19: breakfast at Treasury (one hour);
- Thursday, Feb. 20: telephone call (15 minutes).
In January, the Fed chair’s calendar shows, he and Bessent had breakfast at the Federal Reserve on Thursday, Jan. 30, meeting for one hour.
Neither of those calendars show any contact with Trump. During his first term, the chair’s calendar showed that the chair and Trump were in closer contact, particularly when the coronavirus crisis was becoming apparent in early 2020.
Typically, the Fed releases the chairman’s calendar the first week of the second month following the calendar to be released. The April calendar, for example, will likely be released in early June.
Trump has been vocal in April about replacing (or “terminating”) Powell, whose four-year term as chair expires in May 2026. His term as a board member ends in January 2028.
The president, in his first term, was critical of Powell even though Trump nominated him for the job. President Joe Biden (D) nominated Powell for a second term as Fed chair in 2022.
Shortly after Trump was re-elected in November, Powell was succinct and clear about during a press conference whether he would resign from his job if asked by Trump. “No” was Powell’s curt reply.
He expanded a bit on that reply later in the press conference, responding to a question about does the Federal Reserve believe Trump has the power to fire or demote him or other Fed Board officials from leadership positions. “Not permitted under the law,” Powell replied, repeating it emphatically.
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