U.S. President Donald Trump speaks subsequent to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell throughout a tour of the Federal Reserve Board constructing, which is presently present process renovations, in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 24, 2025.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to permit a “major lawsuit” in opposition to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to proceed, escalating his stress on the central bank chief to lower interest rates.
Trump stated in a Truth Social put up that the go well with would relate to Powell’s administration of expensive renovations on the Fed’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., which the president has beforehand criticized.
Trump didn’t say when that go well with might be filed or by whom.
“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell must NOW lower the rate,” Trump wrote within the put up.
“Steve ‘Manouychin’ really gave me a ‘beauty’when he pushed this loser,” Trump wrote, referring to his first-term Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin having inspired him to nominate Powell as Fed chair in 2017.
“The damage he has done by always being Too Late is incalculable. Fortunately, the economy is sooo good that we’ve blown through Powell and the complacent Board,” Trump claimed.
“I am, though, considering allowing a major lawsuit against Powell to proceed because of the horrible, and grossly incompetent, job he has done in managing the construction of the Fed Buildings.”
“Three Billion Dollars for a job that should have been a $50 Million Dollar fix up. Not good!” he wrote.
The White House didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for touch upon the president’s put up.
The Fed declined to touch upon Trump’s put up.
Powell and the Fed have beforehand defended the ongoing renovations of two historic buildings in D.C., which home the central financial institution, and defined why prices have risen in the course of the tasks.
Powell pushed again on Trump to his face final month when the president visited the development web site and claimed that renovation prices had topped $3.1 billion.
“I haven’t heard that from anybody,” Powell stated then.
Trump has railed in opposition to Powell for months as he pressured the Fed to shortly slash rates of interest by a number of proportion factors.
Trump claims that doing so would save the United States huge sums of cash by lowering the price of borrowing to finance authorities operations.
After elevating the benchmark federal funds charge in 2022 within the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Fed progressively lower rates of interest a number of instances in 2024, the ultimate full yr of President Joe Biden‘s time period in workplace.
But it has saved charges regular all through 2025 to date, defying Trump’s calls for.
In congressional testimony in July, Powell stated that the Fed would have already lower charges this yr if Trump had not applied his main tariff policy.
Fed officers in June indicated that they count on two charge cuts this yr.
Traders currently expect a quarter-point charge discount following the Federal Open Market Committee’s September assembly. Expectations have risen for additional cuts after FOMC conferences in October and December.
— CNBC’s Erin Doherty contributed to this report.