Trump Says He Has Power to Oust Fed’s Powell If He Chooses (2)

President Donald Trump said he could force out Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, rebuking the notion that the US central bank is independent, and vented frustration that monetary policymakers had not recently cut interest rates.

“If I ask him to, he’ll be out of there,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday when asked about an earlier social media post blasting the Fed chair as being too slow to lower rates. “I’m not happy with him. I let him know it.”

The US president in the post said that “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” A Fed spokesperson ...