On Saturday, September 27, 2025, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social with a post that immediately ignited controversy across the financial and political spectrum: a digitally created cartoon image of himself firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. In the image, Trump is captured mid-point, finger extended, as he shouts “YOU’RE FIRED!” at Powell, who stands clutching a cardboard box filled with personal effects. The seal of the Federal Reserve looms in the background, driving home the symbolism. According to a visual analysis by ChatGPT, the image appears to be AI-generated or at least heavily digitally illustrated—a detail that, in today’s era of viral political memes, is hardly surprising but still notable.
This latest post is far from an isolated jab. Trump, never one to mince words, has repeatedly lambasted Powell for what he calls a "cautious" approach to monetary policy. He’s even bestowed the mocking nickname “Too Late Powell” on the central banker, accusing him of holding back the U.S. economy by refusing to slash interest rates as aggressively as Trump would like. The president’s frustrations have only intensified in recent months, despite the Federal Reserve’s decision earlier in September to cut interest rates for the first time this year. That move—seen by some as a nod to economic headwinds—wasn’t enough to satisfy Trump, who’s been pushing for even deeper reductions.
“Near-term risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside – a challenging situation,” Powell explained in August 2025, as reported by CNBC. Powell’s hesitance to drive rates lower, he argued, stemmed largely from ongoing tariff uncertainty, with trade negotiations still unresolved. This balancing act, he said, was about doing what’s best for the American people in the medium term, not about succumbing to political pressure. “We’re just not looking at things that way,” Powell told an audience at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce in Rhode Island on September 23, 2025. “We’re looking at what’s the best thing for the people that we serve in the medium term, what’s the best policy. We don’t get into back and forth with, with external people. We just do our jobs, we keep our head down and do our jobs. That’s what we do.”
The post and Powell’s measured response highlight a broader, unprecedented tension between the White House and the nation’s central bank. No U.S. president has ever attempted to fire the Federal Reserve chair. In fact, a recent Supreme Court decision clarified that the president does not have the authority to remove Fed officials at will. Powell himself has reiterated that his firing is “not permitted under the law.” As reported by CNBC and other outlets, the Trump administration has nonetheless floated the idea of removing Powell for cause, even criticizing him for renovations to the Fed’s Washington headquarters—though those remarks have softened in recent weeks.
But Trump’s campaign to remake the Fed hasn’t stopped with Powell. In August 2025, the president attempted to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook, citing allegations of mortgage fraud. That move, too, has landed before the Supreme Court. On September 26, 2025, the Department of Justice filed a brief stating that removing Cook for alleged misconduct would not destabilize financial markets. Cook’s attorneys, however, countered that such a removal could threaten the independence of the Federal Reserve—a principle many economists and market watchers consider sacrosanct. As of now, financial markets have shown little reaction to either Trump’s threats against Powell or the legal wrangling over Cook’s position. Still, experts warn that forcibly removing Powell before his term ends in May 2026 could have serious consequences, possibly sending long-term interest rates higher as investors lose faith in the Fed’s independence.
Trump’s efforts to influence the central bank go beyond personnel moves. He has also used a vacancy on the Fed board to temporarily appoint Stephen Miran, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and a close economic ally. Miran is the only current board member to publicly support Trump’s call for a dramatic 3% reduction in interest rates. The Fed’s own projections suggest a more modest path: after a 25 basis point cut earlier this month, another 50 basis points in reductions are expected by year-end, setting the effective federal funds rate at about 3.6%. Trump, meanwhile, remains unsatisfied, demanding more aggressive action.
This high-stakes struggle is playing out against a backdrop of broader economic uncertainty. Trump’s tariff agenda and repeated attempts to reshape the Fed’s leadership have weighed on the U.S. dollar, which has lost more than 9% of its value this year on the ICE dollar index, according to reporting from CNBC and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At a recent New York Fed conference, Daleep Singh, vice chair and chief global economist at PGIM Fixed Income, warned that political pressure from the White House could push the Fed into cutting rates too aggressively, posing a short-term risk to the dollar. “We do worry quite a bit about an abruptly dovish shift in the Fed’s reaction function going into next year,” Singh said. “There’s a very decent chance that the FOMC looks and acts quite differently.”
The stakes are high not just for the U.S. economy, but for the global financial system. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which implements monetary policy set in Washington, serves over 200 account holders—including foreign central banks—and acts as custodian for U.S. and foreign gold reserves. Deep beneath its Manhattan headquarters, a vault holds roughly 507,000 gold bars, weighing in at 6,331 tonnes as of 2024. The dollar’s role as the world’s main reserve currency means that any perceived instability in U.S. monetary policy can ripple across continents, affecting everything from commodity prices to emerging market capital flows.
As for the political theater, Trump’s meme-heavy approach to monetary policy isn’t likely to fade away anytime soon. Earlier on September 28, 2025, he posted (and later deleted) an AI-generated story about so-called “Med Beds,” adding to the sense that the president is using digital media to shape public perceptions—and perhaps to distract from more substantive policy debates. Still, for all the noise, the legal and institutional guardrails around the Federal Reserve remain firmly in place, at least for now.
In the end, the real test may come not in the courts or on social media, but in the reaction of markets and the broader public. For now, investors seem to be taking the drama in stride. But as the 2026 expiration of Powell’s term approaches—and as Trump continues to push the boundaries of presidential influence—the future of the Fed and its independence remains a question mark hovering over the American economy.
