Donald Trump threatened to fire Jerome Powell if he stays on as US Federal Reserve chair past the end of his tenure and doubled down on a criminal investigation into renovations of the central bank’s headquarters.
As the White House pushes Trump’s new nominee to take charge of the Fed, Kevin Warsh, Powell has a month left in the role. The possibility of Powell staying on as chair past 15 May, the official end of his term, has grown amid mounting scrutiny of Trump’s approach to the Fed in the Senate, which is required to approve Warsh’s nomination.
“I’ll have to fire him, OK, if he’s not leaving on time,” Trump said of Powell during an interview on Fox Business. “I’ve held back firing him. I wanted to fire him, but I had to be controversial, you know? I want to be uncontroversial.”
Trump reiterated his claim that Powell is doing a “bad job” and that “he should be lowering interest rates” – an argument Trump has made repeatedly since returning to office in January 2025, placing him on a collision course with the slow, careful approach taken by Powell and other economists at the Fed.
Trump threatens to fire Fed chair Jerome Powell amid pressure campaign
Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina and a member of the banking committee, said he will block Trump’s nominee to succeed Powell until the Department of Justice ends its criminal investigation into Powell over renovations at the Fed’s headquarters in Washington DC. Tillis has said that he supports Warsh’s nomination but said the Powell investigation is “reaching the point of absurd”.
US and Iran in indirect talks to extend two-week ceasefire
The US and Iran have been in indirect talks aimed at extending the two-week ceasefire beyond its expiry on 22 April, as Pakistan’s army chief arrived in Tehran to continue mediation efforts.
Tax day: US taxpayers spend hundreds more on military as Trump pushes for vast increase
Many US households spent hundreds more tax dollars on the military last year, according to new analysis, as Donald Trump’s plans to dramatically increase federal defense spending faces growing scrutiny.
‘Uncharted territory’: uncertainty as US vaccine guidance falls apart under Trump
Several shots lost their recommendation from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after a judge’s stay against changes made by the Trump administration – which may affect access to the shots in some states. And no new vaccine recommendations may be made as long as the vaccines committee is halted.
Trump warns US-UK trade deal ‘can always be changed’ with relations in ‘sad state’
Donald Trump has threatened to row back on the trade deal the US signed with the UK last year, in his latest salvo against the British government over sharp differences about the US’s approach to the Middle East.
Ketanji Brown Jackson condemns conservative justices’ pro-Trump orders
The supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has delivered a sustained attack on her conservative colleagues’ use of emergency orders to benefit the Trump administration, calling the orders “scratch-paper musings” that can “seem oblivious and thus ring hollow”.
What else happened today:
Bernie Sanders on Wednesday led a failed effort to block the sale of bombs and bulldozers to Israel, but the votes revealed a growing appetite among Democrats to impose limits on US weapons transfers to a longtime US ally.
The former US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen has attacked Donald Trump’s push for lower interest rates, comparing it to the actions of a “banana republic”.
Concert giant Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary had a harmful monopoly over big concert venues, a Manhattan federal jury has found, dealing the company a loss in a lawsuit over claims brought by dozens of US states.
The French government is pressing the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to release the 86-year-old French widow of a military veteran from immigration custody after she was detained earlier this month.
Donald Trump defended his consumption of diet soda by suggesting it might help prevent cancer, according to recent comments shared by Mehmet Oz in an interview with Donald Trump Jr.
The world’s top 100 oil and gas companies banked more than $30m every hour in unearned profit in the first month of the US-Israeli war in Iran, according to exclusive analysis for the Guardian.
The individual accused of placing pipe bombs near the headquarters of both the Republican and Democratic national committees on the night before the January 6 Capitol attack is now facing two more felony counts, as detailed in a newly released indictment on Wednesday.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 14 April 2026.
