The White House’s Assault on the Fed Is Self-Defeating

The White House’s attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell are escalating dangerously. Officials have deplored the supposedly excessive cost of renovations to the central bank’s headquarters — a matter that has nothing to do with monetary policy — as a fireable offense. While the president denies plans to remove Powell before his term expires next May, he has left open the possibility of sacking him for cause.

This effort to undermine Powell is both baseless and bewildering — baseless because the complaints don’t stand up, bewildering because, if anything, they make it harder for the Fed to deliver what the president most wants: a lower cost of borrowing.