Nick Timiraos

What do you mean by that?

Inflation is the job of the Fed.

And so if you've had a big inflation problem, it's fair to say, well, what's the central bank doing?

And so Trump comes back to office in 2025.

He is not happy with Powell from his first term.

Then he picks up where he left off.

But then in 2025, takes it to a completely different register.

The first move is going after Powell directly.

The president threatens to fire Powell.

When that doesn't work, he then goes after other people on the board.

Namely, in August, he attempts to fire Lisa Cook, who is a Biden-appointed governor, using kind of unproven mortgage fraud allegations.

And that's a line that crosses beyond anything we've seen up until then.

It could be that.

It could be putting pressure on Powell to resign.

It could be just, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.

One way or another, we are going to make life very difficult for the central bank of the United States if it does not give us what we want.

The criminal probe changes the calculation.

If Trump had backed off, it seems likely that Powell would have done what every Fed chair since 1970 has done, which is to leave when his or her term ends.

That's the modern norm.

I talked to somebody who said this was strategically inept for anybody who knows Jay Powell and