DOJ drops Fed chair probe to cap a busy week in politics
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, congressional reporter Sam Gringlas, and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Sam |
| 0:08.8 | Greenglass. I cover Congress. And I'm Frank O'Donias. I cover the White House. And it is time for our Friday |
| 0:14.7 | News Roundup, where we tackle some of the other news of the week. And there is a lot of it. |
| 0:20.9 | Franco, there was some intriguing news this morning from the Justice Department. |
| 0:25.5 | The department signaled it was dropping its investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and the Fed's renovation costs in recent years. |
| 0:36.4 | This was something that President Trump had pushed for some time, |
| 0:40.3 | wouldn't back down from saying this should be investigated. And now the Justice Department is |
| 0:46.7 | stepping back. What do we know about this decision? Yeah, Trump never seemed to let off on the gas |
| 0:51.6 | on this one at all. I mean, it's really, the decision's really quite a |
| 0:55.3 | turnaround. I mean, Janine Puro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, she said she actually |
| 1:00.9 | directed her office to close the investigation of the Federal Reserve and the chair, Powell, of course. |
| 1:06.7 | You know, she cited this inspector general's office is now going to be kind of looking at the alleged cost overruns of this renovation. |
| 1:16.8 | I will note that this flip indecision just comes days after Piro promised to continue the investigation. |
| 1:24.8 | And as you pointed out, Trump has certainly not let up at all, |
| 1:30.6 | including yesterday, raising all these concerns. The problem that Trump had with Powell was that he |
| 1:38.9 | was not, in his opinion, lowering interest rates soon enough. Yeah. To be clear, this investigation was pretty |
| 1:47.5 | blatantly part of a pressure campaign from President Trump on Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman, |
| 1:54.4 | who President Trump called too late and was trying to pressure to lower interest rates. And if not |
| 2:00.7 | that, to just |
| 2:01.6 | quit before his time was up. Sam, what does this mean for Kevin Warsh, who is the president's |
| 2:09.7 | pick to become the Fed chair? He had a confirmation hearing this week, but there was a big cloud |
| 2:14.6 | hanging over it. Yeah, North Carolina Republican Senator Tom Tillis |
... |
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