Jerome Powell and the Future of Fed Independence
Planet Money
NPR
4.6 • 30.5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s impossibly important for the Federal Reserve to steer monetary policy without political interference – an ideal pushed to its brink during Jerome Powell’s time as Fed Chair.
Powell’s Fed faced a once-in-a-century pandemic, oversaw the economy as inflation spiked to about 9 percent … went back down to nearly 2 percent … and has started to go back up as the U.S. has gone to war and continued to try and implement the most comprehensive tariffs since the early 1900s.
But perhaps Powell will be best remembered as a target – of angry tweets, speeches, and ultimately a criminal investigation, by the very president who nominated him in the first place.
On Powell’s last day as chair, we ask where his story fits into the sweep of history. We’ll hear from someone who was on the Fed Board when Powell was appointed … and when President Trump started to pressure Powell. Plus, we learn what to watch for to see if Fed Independence is crumbling – or holding – as a new Fed Chair nominated by President Trump takes office.
Recommend Listening:
- Happy Fed Independence Day
- The case for Fed independence in the Nixon tapes
- A primer on the Federal Reserve's independence
- Trump's unprecedented attack on the Fed
- Should presidents have more of a say in interest rates?
- Lisa Cook and the fight for the Fed
- What happens to central banks under pressure?
Book info. / Subscribe to Planet Money+
Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.
Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.
This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez and Cena Loffredo. Planet Money’s executive producer is Alex Goldmark.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is Planet Money from NPR. |
| 0:05.8 | Today is Jerome Powell's last day. |
| 0:09.0 | As Fed chair, at least, he'll still be on the Fed board that he's allowed to do until |
| 0:13.9 | 2008. |
| 0:14.9 | Now, some quick hits from what has been a pretty eventful tenure. |
| 0:18.7 | The Powell Fed faced a once in a century pandemic. |
| 0:22.4 | Oversaw the economy as inflation spiked to 9.1 percent and then went back down to nearly 2 |
| 0:28.8 | percent. And now as inflation has started to go back up as the U.S. has gone to war and continues |
| 0:34.9 | to try and levy the most comprehensive tariff since the 1940s. |
| 0:39.8 | But beyond all that, perhaps Powell will be most remembered as a target of angry tweets, speeches, |
| 0:46.8 | ultimately a criminal investigation by President Trump and his administration, |
| 0:52.0 | the very president who nominated him in the first place. |
| 0:56.1 | And I remember the moment we at Planet Money really started paying attention to the Trump-Powel tensions. |
| 1:03.8 | It happened about 10 months after Powell was appointed back in 2018. |
| 1:10.0 | The Federal Reserve had raised rates a few times. |
| 1:12.6 | Inflation was still sort of uncomfortably high. |
| 1:15.2 | And the day before the upcoming Fed meeting, President Trump tweets that it is, quote, incredible, |
| 1:20.6 | that, quote, the Fed is even considering yet another interest rate hike. |
| 1:24.6 | And then tweeted again the next day that the Fed better not, quote, |
| 1:28.2 | make yet another mistake. Later that day, the Fed did do another interest rate hike. They |
| 1:34.2 | seemed to ignore the president's tweets, but at the time, we had simply never seen anything like |
| 1:39.7 | this before. For most Americans' lives, this kind of presidential meddling was unprecedented. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 8 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.