In an interview with CBS’ 60 minutes, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that President Trump’s criticism of the the central bank and its interest rate hikes played no role in the Fed’s recent decisions to hold off on raising interest rates further.
The big picture: The Fed’s seemingly sudden shift to pause on further interest rate hikes came after Trump’s unprecedented string of negative comments about Powell and the Fed hiking rates under his leadership — stoking concerns that Trump had influenced the apolitical central bank.