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The GOP schism over the Federal Reserve’s $2.5 billion renovation continues to grow, as House Republicans weigh a new investigation into the project that’s propelling speculation about President Donald Trump firing Chair Jerome Powell.
While Republican senators are largely downplaying the prospects that Trump might seek to remove Powell over the renovation, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee’s oversight subpanel told Semafor on Monday night that he’s weighing his own probe of the Fed.
“I’m going to talk to [Chair] French Hill and see,” said Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., adding that committee Republicans had discussed the project “anecdotally” at the White House on Friday when they attended Trump’s signing of a cryptocurrency bill.
“There seems to be a lot of review already taking place — and that’s not inappropriate, right?” Meuser said. “I mean, $2.5 billion. So we’ve got to see what happened.”
Trump has signaled that the Fed’s ongoing renovation could provide a rationale to fire the central banker, last week suggesting baselessly that the project may involve “fraud.” That move has divided GOP lawmakers — including many who see Trump as simply airing his frustration with the Fed’s choice to leave interest rates unchanged amid shifting tariff policy.
The appearance of bashing Powell’s management of a renovation project to cajole the central bank to lower interest rates has tested the independence of the Fed and sparked bipartisan concern about unsettling investors.
So far, the House Financial Services chair and his deputies have stayed out of the renovation fray, which members and aides described Monday as purposeful: Hill has said he does not believe Trump has the power to fire Powell.
“We’re monitoring,” said another House Financial Services subcommittee chair, Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky. “That’s all I know at this point.”
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Across the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., set the tone on Monday by saying he met with Trump earlier in the day and that firing Powell didn’t come up.
Thune did endorse more oversight of the Fed’s renovations. But he added that interest rate decisions are historically “shielded from politics, and I assume it will continue to stay that way.”
Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., has raised the topic at a recent hearing and is in talks to accompany administration officials seeking to visit the Fed this week.
Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said she had not been read in on the latest regarding a potential visit with Scott. Neither had senior GOP Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, who said of the Fed renovations: “I don’t have a lot of in-depth information. But from what I have seen, I don’t have concerns.”
Asked if he believes Trump wants to fire Powell, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. replied: “No. The sense I get is what the President’s really pushing for” is a Fed move to lower interest rates.
“Bessent has counseled not firing him. I think that’s important [because] there’s a lot that would go with firing him. And right now the economy’s doing well,” Hoeven said.
Trump “usually gets results, so I think he’s putting the push on the Fed to lower rates,” Hoeven added.
Powell, whose term as chair ends in May, has said repeatedly he will not step down before then.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday that Trump “has no plans to fire the Fed chair” but that “Powell should cut interest rates.”
Notable
- Former Federal Reserve Chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen warned that Trump’s attacks “risk lasting and serious economic harm” in an editorial in The New York Times.