President Trump again took aim the Federal Reserve for its interest rate hike last week — but said he had overall confidence in the U.S. economy.
“They’re raising interest rates too fast because they think the economy is so good. But I think that they will get it pretty soon,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
Trump said “we’ll see” when asked if he has confidence in Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom he appointed and has repeatedly criticized.
Early Monday, Trump said on Twitter: “The only problem our economy has is the Fed.”
Monday was the worst Christmas Eve trading day for the New York Stock Exchange ever, and U.S. stocks have dropped sharply throughout December.
But Trump said he still has confidence in the U.S. economy, despite recent struggles.
“I have great confidence in our companies. We have companies, the greatest in the world, and they’re doing really well. They have record kinds of numbers. So I think it’s a tremendous opportunity to buy,” Trump said Tuesday.
The president was explicit in his support for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin when asked and called him a “very talented guy, very smart person.”
Bloomberg News cited two sources who said Trump has recently weighed dismissing Mnuchin.
On Sunday, Mnuchin called the six heads of the largest U.S. banks to discuss liquidity — though a senior Treasury official told CNBC on Monday that there are no concerns about liquidity whatsoever. Mnuchin also on Monday hosted a call with Trump’s Working Group on Financial Markets, known colloquially as the “Plunge Protection team.”
There have also been reports that Trump is actively looking to fire Powell, a legally murky proposition. No chairman of the Fed has been fired before — the central bank derives its power from Congress — but acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that the president knows he cannot do so.
