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The White House is reviewing whether President Donald Trump could remove Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, a move that would break sharply with long-held norms of central bank independence, CNN reported on Friday.
Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters that Trump and his team “will continue to study” the potential firing of Powell, adding that a fresh “legal analysis” may guide their decision.
In his 2021 book, Hassett had sharply criticized Trump’s 2018 threat to fire Powell, warning of serious economic fallout.
It “would have savaged the reputation of the Federal Reserve Board as an objective and independent manager of the nation’s money supply,” Hassett wrote, according to CNN.
“The credibility of the dollar would have been compromised”, Hassett had warned, adding, “The stock market might have crashed.”
However, when pressed on his past statements, Hassett reportedly said the legal and market landscape has changed.
“I think that at that time, the market was at a completely different place and I was referring to the legal analysis that we had back then, and if there’s new legal analysis that says something different, then it would be a different market response, as well,” CNN quoted him as saying.
Trump reignited speculation around Powell’s potential firing this week, telling reporters, “If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast.”
Hassett, now serving as director of the National Economic Council, stopped short of endorsing that view but signalled a more open stance than in previous years, the report suggests.
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