Trump has discussed firing Fed chief after latest interest rate hike: report

President Trump has discussed firing Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell after the central bank announced this week that it would raise interest rates, Bloomberg reports. 

The Fed’s policymaking arm, the Federal Open Market Committee, voted Wednesday to raise the baseline interest rate range to 2.25 to 2.5 percent, a 0.25 percentage point increase.

The decision was staunchly opposed by Trump, who had for months argued that rates should not rise. 

According to Bloomberg, the decision led Trump to privately discuss firing Powell. Unnamed advisers told the news outlet that they hoped the president would back down from the threats over the Christmas holiday.{mosads}

Trump is expected to join his wife Melania Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida at some point over the next week, though those plans were delayed Friday by congressional negotiations concerning the government shutdown.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill late Friday night on Bloomberg’s report.

Powell publicly pushed back against the president earlier this month after Trump tweeted urging the Fed to resist raising interest rates, citing a stock market selloff.

“I know, and everyone who works at the Fed knows, that we’re going to do our jobs the way we’ve always done them,” Powell said at a press conference at the time.

Trump previously said in October that he would “maybe” regret selecting Powell to succeed the Federal Reserve’s previous chairwoman, Janet Yellen, who resigned in November 2017.