Another week of back and forth on tariffs and an indirect back and forth on just how independent an independent agency can be under this administration.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.

In Washington, D.C., I'm Kimberly Adams in for Kai Rizdal. It's Friday, the 18th of April. It's good to have you along, everybody. What a week it was. Again, I feel like we're saying that every week. But anyway, here to talk about all of it, break down everything that went down. Courtney Brown from Axios and David Gura of Bloomberg. Hey, you two.

Hey, Kimberly.

Hey, Kimberly.

I want to start with you, David, and what was kind of the biggest news for us in the business and economics field this week, which was President Trump really going in on Fed Chair Jerome Powell, saying in the Oval Office, if I want him out, he'll be out real fast, believe me. Jerome Powell, obviously saying again and again that he has no intention of leaving. How serious is this threat to the Fed's independence?

I think that it got more serious this week.

So those comments in the Oval Office came after a post on Truth Social from the president, which he floated the idea of terminating the Fed chair, something that hasn't happened before. And this is kind of shaky legal ground. The Fed Chair, Jay Powell, has been really adamant that the president doesn't have the right to remove him as Fed Chair. And I think it's no secret from that quote you just read and sort of what we've heard over these last few months that the president really doesn't

like Jay Powell or the way he's approaching this job, even though we should point out he did pick

Jay Powell to be the Fed chair for a second term. It's not just the president who's kind of talking

him down publicly. Kevin Hassett, his chief

economic advisor, said today that the president and his team are going to continue to study whether

the president has the ability to remove him, kind of cast into question the way that the Fed managed

the economy when President Biden was in office. So all of this is kind of sowing doubt about the

institution itself, eroding that independence, the more it comes up.

And just to step back a little bit more here, I think it's part of this larger conversation about the heads of these independent organizations, how safe they are.

We've seen challenges in the Supreme Court.

We've seen FTC commissioners removed by the president.

They're fighting to get those jobs back.

So, you know, it got more

serious today. And I think it really highlights the fact that we have a really direct challenge by this

administration against kind of longstanding independence, not just in the Fed, but other institutions in the federal government.

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