WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says political attacks by President Donald Trump played no role in the Fed’s decision in January to signal that it planned to take a pause in hiking interest rates. He also says he can’t be fired by the president and that he intends to serve out his full four-year term.
In an interview with the CBS news program “60 Minutes,” Powell says that the Fed decided to pause its rate hikes in January, after increasing rates four times in 2018, because the global economy was slowing and other risks to the U.S. economy were rising.
Powell says that despite the criticism, the Fed will always “make decisions based on what we think is right for the American people.”
