The Looming Demise of Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will certainly leave behind a controversial legacy as the 16th Chair of America’s centralized banking system. While Powell’s term as Fed Chair is set to expire in the summer of 2026, there is a real possibility that he might be gone before then.
Over the past six months, President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have voiced their desire for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. Trump and Bessent have several reasons for wanting to lower interest rates—including spurring economic growth, rebalancing America’s trade deficits with other countries, and lowering the cost of borrowing for the Federal government.
The cost of servicing the interest on the Federal Government’s $36 Trillion national debt is skyrocketing northward of $880 billion dollars. What’s more, the United States Federal Government holds roughly $9 trillion dollars of debt that is set to mature within the next year. Therefore, the Federal Government is set to pay an additional hundreds of billions of dollars of interest on the refinanced debt unless interest rates go down soon—hence President Trump’s desire to lower interest rates.
Despite this situation, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has refused to lower interest rates over the past seven months. Inflation is still above the Federal Reserve’s stated goal of 2% annual inflation with the CPI hovering around 2.7% in the June 2025 report, and a cut to the Federal Funds rate could easily lead to the high inflation rates that Americans suffered in 2021 and 2022.
As you can probably guess, President Trump has publicly shared his displeasure with Jerome Powell’s decision-making as Federal Reserve Chair. In fact, President Trump has released a handwritten letter to Chairman Powell complaining about America’s higher interest rates when compared to other developed economies.
Besides the above letter, President Trump has even hinted at firing Powell as Chair of the Federal Reserve. No previous American President has fired the Federal Reserve Chair—making this potential move unprecedented and legally murky.
Besides the criticism from the Trump administration, Jerome Powell may be facing criminal charges soon over the $2+ Billion renovation of the Federal Reserve’s headquarters in Washington DC. Current OMB Director Russ Vought has recently claimed that Powell misled Congress in his testimony concerning the Central Bank’s renovations. Additionally, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna announced last week that she plans to criminally refer Jerome Powell to the Trump DOJ for potential perjury.
With just one year until his term as Federal Reserve Chair expires, Jerome Powell’s days in policy-making appear numbered. The real question remaining is whether Powell resigns in disgrace due to the potential criminal charges or he rides out the final year of his term. The timing of Powell’s end as Federal Reserve Chairman will undoubtedly have a major impact on the American economy, and we can likely expect a more-Trump friendly Chair as the next head of the Federal Reserve.
