WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump has relentlessly ousted officials who defy him, but he may have met an immovable opponent in Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
As the White House escalates its pressure campaign—now using Justice Department subpoenas and criminal threats—Senate Republicans are rallying around Powell in a rare break with their own president.
“I know Chairman Powell very well. I will be stunned — I will be shocked — if he has done anything wrong,” said Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, one of Trump’s most loyal allies in the Senate.
Soon after the subpoenas were served, Powell released a video statement accusing the administration of manufacturing “pretexts” to coerce the Fed into cutting interest rates, a longtime Trump demand.
The 72-year-old chair also activated relationships cultivated since his 2018 appointment, holding multiple calls with GOP senators in the days that followed.
“He knows his way around Congress,” said Robert Tetlow, a former senior Fed policy adviser. “He gets in there, pets the dog, shoots the breeze, and has a way of getting people to like him, and he’s really good at it.”
The unusual standoff underscores the political and institutional strength Powell has built—and the limits of Trump’s power when confronting a figure insulated by bipartisan respect.
By James Kisoo
