Trump’s Plan to Fire Powell Is Backfiring—Spectacularly
Bulwark Takes
The Bulwark
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
Andrew Egger and Catherine Rampell give their takes on Trump latest fight with Jerome Powell, now floating the idea of firing Powell, while a bogus investigation continues to hang over the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, Senator Thom Tillis is refusing to move forward on Trump’s preferred replacement, Kevin Warsh, unless that probe is dropped. Plus: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright struggle to explain rising gas prices, walking back earlier optimism as global tensions push costs higher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, everybody. I am Andrew Eger with The Bullwork, joined by our economics reporter, Catherine Rampel, to talk about the latest in Donald Trump's long-running, sometimes low-simmering, but always there, fight against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. |
| 0:16.2 | Powell's term atop the Fed is up next month. You would think, under ordinary circumstances, that that would be |
| 0:23.0 | just sort of the peaceable ending to this fight. But it might not end up being quite that easy for |
| 0:28.4 | reasons that we're going to talk about. We'll start with just sort of the headline news today |
| 0:32.6 | of Donald Trump in an interview with Fox Businesses Maria Bartaromo, |
| 0:38.3 | saying that even though the chair is supposed to be up next month, |
| 0:43.3 | he still might get fired after all. |
| 0:45.3 | So let's hear the president saying that. |
| 0:46.3 | So you're not going to drop the probe. |
| 0:48.3 | I have to find out. |
| 0:50.3 | And he said he's not leaving if, you know. |
| 0:52.3 | Well, then I'll have to fire him, okay? |
| 0:54.7 | If he's not leaving on time, I've held back firing him. I've wanted to fire him, but I hate to be controversial, you know? I want to be uncontroversial, but he will be fired. And you think Kevin Worse can get confirmed? You think Tom Tillis is going to give you a vote? Well, we're going to have to find that. He might not, but that's why Tom Tillis is no longer a senator. |
| 1:13.1 | There's a lot to unpack in all of that from our famously most uncontroversial president that we've seen in many lifetimes. But, Catherine, can you just kind of walk us through this weird Mexican standoff that's happening right now with Tillis and Kevin Warsh and and Jerome Powell and Trump? |
| 1:28.8 | It's a Mexican standoff in which all of the players are Donald Trump pointing all of the guns |
| 1:33.8 | at Donald Trump, I guess, in the sense that the reason why Jay Powell may stick around longer |
| 1:41.9 | than, you know, he otherwise would, is that Donald Trump is investigating him. |
| 1:47.6 | So Donald Trump, to sort of lay it out a little bit more chronologically, the Fed is supposed to be politically |
| 1:53.9 | independent, has been politically independent, presidents are not supposed to weigh in on Fed policy. |
| 2:00.2 | Donald Trump did not get the memo. Donald Trump |
| 2:02.4 | has been pushing for the Federal Reserve to reduce rates. Basically, every time he's president, |
| 2:09.2 | presumably he feels less strongly about that when he was out of office. The result is that when |
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