Under relentless attack from President Donald Trump, Jerome Powell needs all the allies he can get — and he has plenty in Congress, including among Republicans who show little appetite for ditching the Federal Reserve chief.

Collectively, GOP lawmakers have endorsed almost every other economic idea that second-term Trump has put forward. But in interviews, several of them — including some who criticize aspects of Powell’s track record — expressed backing for his overall performance and for the wider principle that central bankers should be shielded from political interference.

“He’s done quite admirably, considering what he’s faced,” said Oklahoma Representative Frank Lucas, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, capturing that wider mood. “He’s a stabilizing force,” said Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota.

Those are the opposite of Trump’s stated views. In recent weeks he’s voiced mounting anger toward Powell — slamming his reluctance to cut interest rates, as an escalating trade war threatens to slow the economy and raise prices.

On Wednesday, the Fed cited growing uncertainty on both those fronts as it held rates steady in a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, where they’ve been since December. Powell said there’s no hurry to change them while the outlook is so unclear, and warned that tariffs may drive both inflation and unemployment higher. His comments amounted to an “assertion of independence,” as well as a “thinly veiled critique” of Trump’s trade policy, said Sam Tombs at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Trump’s critiques of Powell haven’t been veiled at all. Last month they helped trigger a global flight from U.S. assets, after the president’s rhetoric got so heated that it looked like he might try to remove the Fed chair — a step that would risk torching the autonomy of the world’s most powerful central bank.

Trump has subsequently promised not to. Cramer said he found that encouraging because “what the market wouldn’t need is another shakeup.”

‘For cause’

Less reassuring for the Fed chief is a shift in views among Trump’s economic aides. Some of them are coming round to the idea that if the president does another U-turn and decides he wants to get rid of Powell after all, then there’s no legal obstacle.

A handful of top officials — including National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, who just a couple of months ago professed respect for the Fed’s independence — have privately argued the president can legally fire Powell as chair, according to people familiar with the internal discussions. Others making that case include Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought and his nominated deputy Eric Ueland.

Spokespeople for the White House and OMB did not respond to requests for comment.

The debate revolves around the law governing the central bank, and whether the protection it offers to Fed governors — that they can’t be dismissed except “for cause” — applies to the chair too.

Powell’s term as chair expires in May 2026. His underlying role as a governor continues through January 2028. Asked at Wednesday’s press conference whether he would also step down from the board when his chair term ends, he declined to answer.

When Trump explored firing or demoting Powell during his first term, the White House team concluded that he probably couldn’t. But his new administration is involved in legal fights — now before the Supreme Court — that could erode protections for board members at various independent agencies, including the Fed.

‘Where it matters’

Powell referenced one of those lawsuits at a Chicago event last month, saying that he doesn’t expect its outcome to affect the Fed, and that he and his colleagues can’t be removed “except for cause.” He also cited solidarity on Capitol Hill. “Fed independence is very widely understood and supported in Washington, in Congress, where it really matters,” he said.

Congressional backing helps shore up public confidence that the Fed will act in the economy’s best interests, and not under political pressure, according to Lev Menand, an associate professor at Columbia Law School who studies the central bank. Powell often says that’s how the Fed makes decisions, and he repeated the point Wednesday when asked about Trump’s rate-cut calls.

To be sure, it’s not clear whether the GOP-led legislature — which has gone along with most of Trump’s second-term plans even when they’ve been constitutionally controversial — would or could stick its neck out to protect the Fed chief if his job came under renewed threat.

What’s more, some lawmakers are pressing the Fed to do better. In the Senate, the GOP’s Rick Scott — a longtime critic of Powell’s management of the Fed who’s repeatedly called on him to resign — has teamed up with Democrat Elizabeth Warren to push a bill that would create an independent watchdog to oversee the central bank. Both senators say the Fed’s office of the inspector general has failed to hold Fed officials properly accountable amid a series of ethics scandals.

And plenty of Republicans in Congress see some merit in Trump’s Fed gripes. One reason they cite is that Powell largely refrained from opining on whether the Biden administration’s boost to federal spending helped cause the post-Covid inflation spike.

There’s a “disconcerting” double-standard in the contrast between that approach and the way Powell has recently talked about tariffs, said Representative Dan Meuser, a member of the House Financial Services Committee. Even so, he said Powell is “the right person for the Fed.”

‘He’ll be out’

Powell says the Fed approaches government policies, whether fiscal or trade, in an apolitical way. Still, it was his warnings about tariff-led inflation in Chicago last month — along with the assertion he couldn’t be fired — that triggered Trump’s team.

Just 24 hours later, Trump was telling reporters in the Oval Office that “if I ask him to, he’ll be out of there.” A day later, Hassett slammed the Fed for failing to speak out about “the obvious runaway spending from Joe Biden,” and said firing Powell was a live possibility.

Trump appeared to take that idea off the table in more recent comments, after encouragement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who’s indicated support for Fed independence. Still, the barbs and insults continue to flow.

In recent weeks the president has called Powell a “major loser” and a “total stiff.” Early Thursday, after the central bank declined to cut rates, Trump responded mildly by his own standards, describing the Fed chair as “a FOOL, who doesn’t have a clue.” A few hours later he complained that “everybody’s cutting but him,” and said meeting with Powell is “like talking to a wall.”

All these eruptions didn’t come out of nowhere. Trump appointed Powell in 2018, but their relationship has been rocky pretty much ever since. The president has repeatedly blamed the central bank for keeping borrowing costs too high. In the 2024 campaign, he vacillated between promising to uphold the Fed’s independence, and to exert more power over it.

Powell’s continued backing in Congress reflects a preference across a wide range of constituencies — from Wall Street to business groups and labor unions — for the first of those options over the second, according to Columbia’s Menand.

“Congress is responding to the political reality that there isn’t a lot of support for this extension of presidential power,” he said. “I don’t think any of these constituencies, any of these interest groups, are out there saying, ‘We think central bank independence is a bad idea and let the president direct monetary policy.’”

That’s apparently true even of Trump-supporting stalwarts like John Kennedy of Louisiana, a member of the Senate Banking committee that oversees the Fed. The record under Powell “hasn’t been perfect,” he told reporters last month. “The Fed acted too late on inflation. They tolerated President Biden’s inflation for too long.”

Still, “I’ve been pleased with the job that he’s done,” Kennedy said — adding: “I think the Fed ought to be independent.”

(With assistance from Alex Tanzi.)

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