Trump meets with Powell, tells him it's a 'mistake' not to lower rates
The Federal Reserve said that Jerome Powell met with Donald Trump Thursday "at the president’s invitation," and the White House said the president told the central bank boss that he is making a mistake by not lowering rates.
The face-to-face encounter follows months of Powell criticism from Trump and pressure on the Fed to ease monetary policy.
The Fed said in a statement that Powell met with the president to discuss "economic developments including for growth, employment, and inflation."
Powell, according to the Fed, "did not discuss his expectations for monetary policy, except to stress that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook."
The chair said he and his colleagues on the Fed's rate-setting committee will make decisions about monetary policy "based solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis," the Fed added in its statement.
The White House confirmed the Powell meeting, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters that the Fed's summary was correct but noting that the president pushed Powell to lower rates.
"The president did say that he believes the Fed chair is making a mistake by not lowering interest rates, which is putting us at an economic disadvantage to China and other countries," she said, adding Trump has been very vocal about his views publicly as well.
