--- title: Mulvaney: Trump Realizes He Can't Fire Fed Chairman description: Mick Mulvaney on Sunday said that Donald Trump doesn’t think the U.S. President has the authority to fire the head of the Federal Reserve. canonical: https://time.com/5487722/mulvaney-president-trump-federal-reserve-chairman/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-12-23T20:08:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:01.735Z article:section: Politics og:title: Mulvaney: President Trump Realizes He Can't Fire the Federal Reserve Chairman og:description: Mick Mulvaney echoed the comments of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin og:url: https://time.com/5487722/mulvaney-president-trump-federal-reserve-chairman/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltab792995e27cd571/6989423a096a94c2736a43fe/mulvaney-trump-federal-reserve.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: mulvaney-trump-federal-reserve og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Mulvaney: President Trump Realizes He Can't Fire the Federal Reserve Chairman twitter:description: Mick Mulvaney echoed the comments of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltab792995e27cd571/6989423a096a94c2736a43fe/mulvaney-trump-federal-reserve.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Mulvaney: President Trump Realizes He Can't Fire the Federal Reserve Chairman > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=e251b6ba-ef08-44ce-8614-5cda6e2c3cc2&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Big Losses as U.S. Markets Suffer Worst Week in Years [Watch (HLS stream): Big Losses as U.S. Markets Suffer Worst Week in Years](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/iuWE51GB.m3u8) (1:07)  _Published 2018-12-22. President Donald Trump has discussed firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as his frustration with the central bank chief intensified following this week’s interest-rate hike._ by [Mark Niquette / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Mark Niquette / Bloomberg Contributor Dec 23, 2018 8:08 PM UTC  White House counsel Pat Cipollone, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, listen as President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence meet with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., during a meeting in the Oval Office of White House on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018 in Washington, DC. White House counsel Pat Cipollone, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, listen as President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence meet with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., during a meeting in the Oval Office of White House on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018 in Washington, DC. The Washington Post—The Washington Post/Getty Images by [Mark Niquette / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Mark Niquette / Bloomberg Contributor Dec 23, 2018 8:08 PM UTC White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Sunday echoed the comments of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that Donald Trump doesn’t think the U.S. president has the authority to fire the head of the Federal Reserve. Trump has made no public comments about a Bloomberg News report late Friday that he’d discussed firing the Fed’s Jerome Powell after the latest interest rate hike by the central bank under Powell’s stewardship. But Mulvaney, who’s set to become the acting White House chief of staff, said on ABC’s “This Week” that he’d spoken with Mnuchin, who issued a pair of tweets Saturday evening in which he quoted Trump saying he didn’t believe he had the authority to remove Powell. “He put out a tweet last night specifically saying that he now realizes he does not have the ability,’’ Mulvaney said, at first mistakenly attributing the tweets directly to Trump, then correcting himself that they came via Mnuchin, who moved to reassure markets that Powell wouldn’t be ousted. Mulvaney, the incoming acting White House chief of staff, said “it’s not at all unusual for a president to complain about the actions of the Federal Reserve chairman” and that the tension between the president and an independent Fed is “traditional as part of our system.” “So it shouldn’t be surprising to anybody that the president’s not happy that the Fed is raising rates and we think driving down the value of the stock market,” he said. Mulvaney said fundamentals of the economy are strong, with unemployment low and capital investment high. The administration isn’t happy about the recent market decline but “the stock market goes up, the stock market goes down,” he added. Asked about a New York Times report that Trump told advisers Powell’s interest-rate increases will “turn me into” President Herbert Hoover, who was in office during the Great Depression, Mulvaney said the economy is much stronger than in the 1920s. “No one thinks we’re going into a Great Depression,” Mulvaney said. Mulvaney said he’s talked with Trump about his “acting” designation as chief of staff, and noted people serve in the administration at the pleasure of the president. “I think what we’ll just do is take a couple weeks, a couple months and see if he likes the way I’m handling the job, if I’d like the job,” he said. “This is an ordinary thing.” ## Transcript [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Investors are very fearful that the growth of the US economy and the global economy are going to slow down a lot next year and the year after that. And that there could even be a recession, either in the US or for the entire world economy. And that leaves them with a lot of major questions about corporate profits and the stock market. Right now, they are not willing to buy or set limits for these declines. For major indexes, this was the worst week for the S & P 500 since August of 2011, when the markets fell very sharply because of the debt ceiling crisis for the federal government. The Federal Reserve's projections for interest rates don't seemed to have calmed investors down any. Some of them were concerned that perhaps the Fed isn't watching the state of the markets as closely as it could be, that it's not as concerned about the health of the economy as they are, but ultimately it's hard to find one concrete reason for this decline. Investigation of what? There are just a lot of concerns about what growth is going to look like with the trade tensions rising, and all of these other issues. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5487722/mulvaney-president-trump-federal-reserve-chairman/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5487722/mulvaney-president-trump-federal-reserve-chairman/"},"headline":"Mulvaney: President Trump Realizes He Can't Fire the Federal Reserve Chairman","datePublished":"2018-12-23T20:08:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:53:01.735Z","description":"Mick Mulvaney echoed the comments of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin","url":"https://time.com/5487722/mulvaney-president-trump-federal-reserve-chairman/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltab792995e27cd571/6989423a096a94c2736a43fe/mulvaney-trump-federal-reserve.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mark Niquette / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltab792995e27cd571/6989423a096a94c2736a43fe/mulvaney-trump-federal-reserve.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"mulvaney-trump-federal-reserve","caption":"President Donald J. 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