How the Federal Reserve is fighting back as Trump threatens its independence

Here & Now Anytime

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🗓️ 12 January 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

The Trump administration is threatening criminal charges against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Powell said it’s part of a pressure campaign from the administration to lower interest rates. Economist Jason Furman explains more.

And, in Iran, more than 500 people have been killed during anti-government protests since they started in late December, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Alireza Nader, former researcher at RAND and the U.S. Treasury, joins us.

Then, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani have unveiled a plan to offer free child care for 2-year-olds. Citizens Unions’ Grace Rauh details what this could mean for families.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like,
0:09.3	why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:20.5	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:24.9	This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions,
0:31.1	or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
0:36.2	Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says the president is trying to intimidate him into
0:41.1	lowering interest rates.
0:43.4	It's Monday, January 12th, and this is hearing now anytime from NPR and WBOR.
0:48.5	I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, we'll check in on Iran, where an American human rights group says more than 500 protesters have been killed and more than 10,000 arrested.
1:08.7	President Trump said Tehran called him to negotiate after he threatened them
1:13.8	with war. Also, as a candidate, Zoran Mumdani promised New Yorkers free child care. Now that he's
1:22.3	the mayor, he's moving to make it happen. We will provide universal child care for three-year-olds, and we are going to
1:28.1	start to provide universal child care for two-year-olds across the city beginning this fall with
1:32.6	2,000 children. How will free child care in New York work? That's coming up in about 10 minutes. Before we
1:39.1	get to that, though, you normally have to read between the lines when a Fed chair makes a public statement.
1:47.1	Not so when Jerome Powell said this after the Department of Justice threatened him with a
1:52.7	criminal indictment over the weekend. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal
1:57.6	Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public,
2:03.3	rather than following the preferences of the president.
2:06.8	This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions,
2:12.8	or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
2:18.4	Economists and politicians of both major parties are coming out to defend Powell and the
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