WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has spent his second term bulldozing elected and appointed officials who resist him or refuse to bend to his demands. But he may have met his match in Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
As the Trump administration ramps up its pressure campaign against the central bank — now including Justice Department subpoenas and the threat of criminal charges — Senate Republicans have closed ranks around Powell, defending an independent Fed chair under attack from a president of their own party.
“I know Chairman Powell very well. I will be stunned — I will be shocked — if he has done anything wrong,” said GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, one of Trump’s most reliable allies in the Senate.
Soon after the Justice Department served subpoenas on the Fed, Powell went on the offensive, releasing a video statement accusing the administration of using “pretexts” to pressure the central bank into sharply cutting interest rates, as Trump has demanded. The 72-year-old Fed chair also leaned on Capitol Hill relationships he has cultivated since his 2018 appointment, holding multiple calls with Republican senators in the days following the video’s release.
“He knows his way around Congress,” said Robert Tetlow, a former senior policy adviser at the Fed. “He gets in there, pets the dog, shoots the breeze, and has a way of getting people to like him, and he’s really good at it.”
In a March 2024 hearing, Powell received an unusual greeting from a member of the Senate Banking Committee: The office dog had said hello.
“Gus sends his regards,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican. “If you have time after the hearing, you ought to go by and see him.”
“I don’t want to disturb his nap,” Powell said to laughter in the hearing room.
Now, Tillis — who is retiring at the end of this year — has been among the Republicans rushing to Powell’s defense, vowing to withhold support for any Trump administration nominees to the Federal Reserve until the legal cloud surrounding the chair is resolved.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski put her support behind Tillis’ plan to block nominees. She was among the multiple Republican senators who said they spoke with Powell after his video statement.
“I look at the situation with Jay Powell and this supposed investigation of the overhaul of their offices going over there as grounds to do nothing but intimidate, threaten and coerce,” Murkowski told reporters. Powell goes by “Jay” informally.
Murkowski and Tillis have not shied away from critiquing the Trump administration in recent months. What makes the Powell backlash unique is that even reliable Trump allies — and opponents of the Fed’s recent decisions — have rushed to the Fed chair's side.
“I believe strongly in an independent Federal Reserve,” said Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick, who also sits on the Senate Banking Committee. The first-term senator added that he agrees “with President Trump that Chairman Powell has been slow to cut interest rates” but said he doesn't “think Chairman Powell is guilty of criminal activity.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that the investigation “better be real” and “better be serious.”
In the House, Financial Services Chair French Hill criticized the Justice Department’s investigation.
“I know Mr. Powell to be a man of integrity with a strong commitment to public service,” he said. “While over the years we have had our policy disagreements, I found him to be forthright, candid, and a person of the highest integrity.”
Hill also said in his statement that he has “known Chairman Powell since we worked together at Treasury during the George H.W. Bush Administration.”
Powell, a Republican, has been a fixture in the nation's capital for decades, where he developed a reputation as a centrist. He worked at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank, from 2010 to 2012 and pushed congressional Republicans toward compromise during their budget battles with President Barack Obama.
Obama, in turn, appointed Powell to the Fed's governing board in 2012. Trump then elevated him to the Chair position in 2018. He was reappointed by President Joe Biden in 2022.
Powell also built up credibility among Republicans in the House and Senate by largely ignoring Trump’s personal attacks during the president’s first term in office, when he complained about rate hikes by Powell in 2018. In general, Powell has tried to keep his head down and avoid a back-and-forth with the White House. A solid economy — at least until the COVID pandemic struck -- also helped protect the Fed during Trump’s first term.
Powell has often cited support on Capitol Hill as a counterweight to Trump’s attacks. At a news conference last July, Powell discussed the importance of distancing the Fed from “direct political control,” because that allows the central bank to take unpopular steps such as raising interest rates to thwart inflation.
“I think that’s pretty widely understood,” he said. “Certainly, it is in Congress.”
Powell’s public schedule underscores his commitment to staying connected with Congress. In the month following Trump’s inauguration last year, he met with or spoke by phone with 27 senators from both parties, according to his schedule.
After testifying before the Senate Banking Committee about the renovation of Fed buildings in June of last year, Powell followed up with the chair, Tim Scott, and the ranking member, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, about the cost of the project.
“As is to be expected in the major renovation of nearly 100-year-old historic buildings, the Board’s designs have continued to evolve over the course of the project,” wrote Powell.
The subpoenas served to the Fed relate to Powell’s comments about the $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, which Trump has criticized as excessive.
“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President,” Powell said in a video statement.
Trump has insisted he was unaware of the investigation into Powell. When asked by CBS News whether the subpoenas were a form of retribution, Trump said Tuesday, “I can't help what it looks like.”
Trump has gone after several officials he sees as having done him wrong, including an attempted firing of another Fed board member, Lisa Cook. The Supreme Court has allowed Cook to keep her job and will hold a hearing on her case on Wednesday.
But not all of Trump's efforts are sticking, with federal inquiries against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James tossed out by the courts.
“So far it looks like this has been a misstep for the administration,” said Lev Menand, a law professor at Columbia University and author of a book about the Fed. “This attempt to go after Jay Powell with a potential criminal indictment is leading to significant resistance from elected officials even within the Republican Party.”
A video of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell plays on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.
Donald Trump isn't leaving it to future generations.
As the first year of his second term wraps up, his Republican administration and allies have put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships that's yet to be built.
That’s on top of the “Trump Accounts” for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website soon to offer direct sales of prescription drugs, the “Trump Gold Card” visa that costs at least $1 million and the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a transit corridor included in a deal his administration brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On Friday, he attended a ceremony at his Florida home to mark the renaming of a 4-mile (6-kilometer) stretch of road from the airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach as President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.
“That’s a very important stretch," Trump said as he thanked local officials for the dedication.
“When people see that the beautiful sign is all lit up nice at night and it says ‘Donald J. Trump Boulevard,’ they’ll be filled with pride. Just pride," Trump said. “Not in me. Pride in our country.”
It’s unprecedented for a sitting president to embrace tributes of that number and scale, especially those proffered by members of his administration. And while past sitting presidents have typically been honored by local officials naming schools and roads after them, it's exceedingly rare for airports, federal buildings, warships or other government assets to be named for someone still in power.
“At no previous time in history have we consistently named things after a president who was still in office,” said Jeffrey Engel, the David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “One might even extend that to say a president who is still alive. Those kind of memorializations are supposed to be just that — memorials to the passing hero.”
White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said the TrumpRx website linked to the president's deals to lower the price of some prescription drugs, along with “overdue upgrades of national landmarks, lasting peace deals, and wealth-creation accounts for children are historic initiatives that would not have been possible without President Trump’s bold leadership.”
"The Administration’s focus isn’t on smart branding, but delivering on President Trump’s goal of Making America Great Again," Huston said.
The White House pointed out that the nation's capital was named after President George Washington and the Hoover Dam was named after President Herbert Hoover while each was serving as president.
For Trump, it’s a continuation of the way he first etched his place onto the American consciousness, becoming famous as a real estate developer who affixed his name in big gold letters on luxury buildings and hotels, a casino and assorted products like neckties, wine and steaks.
As he ran for president in 2024, the candidate rolled out Trump-branded business ventures for watches, fragrances, Bibles and sneakers — including golden high tops priced at $799. After taking office again last year, Trump's businesses launched a Trump Mobile phone company, with plans to unveil a gold-colored smartphone and a cryptocurrency memecoin named $TRUMP.
That’s not to be confused with plans for a physical, government-issued Trump coin that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said the U.S. Mint is planning.
Trump has also reportedly told the owners of Washington’s NFL team that he would like his name on the Commanders’ new stadium. The team’s ownership group, which has the naming rights, has not commented on the idea. But a White House spokeswoman in November called the proposed name “beautiful” and said Trump made the rebuilding of the stadium possible.
The addition of Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center in December so outraged independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that he introduced legislation this week to ban the naming or renaming of any federal building or land after a sitting president — a ban that would retroactively apply to the Kennedy Center and Institute of Peace.
“I think he is a narcissist who likes to see his name up there. If he owns a hotel, that’s his business,” Sanders said in an interview. “But he doesn’t own federal buildings.”
Sanders likened Trump's penchant for putting his name on government buildings and more to the actions of authoritarian leaders throughout history.
“If the American people want to name buildings after a president who is deceased, that’s fine. That’s what we do,” Sanders said. “But to use federal buildings to enhance your own position very much sounds like the ‘Great Leader’ mentality of North Korea, and that is not something that I think the American people want.”
Although some of the naming has been suggested by others, the president has made clear he’s pleased with the tributes.
Three months after the announcement of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a name the White House says was proposed by Armenian officials, the president gushed about it at a White House dinner.
“It’s such a beautiful thing, they named it after me. I really appreciate it. It’s actually a big deal,” he told a group of Central Asian leaders.
Engel, the presidential historian, said the practice can send a signal to people "that the easiest way to get access and favor from the president is to play to his ego and give him something or name something after him.”
Some of the proposals for honoring Trump include legislation in Congress from New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney that would designate June 14 as “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day," placing the president with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Jesus Christ, whose birthdays are recognized as national holidays.
Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube has introduced legislation that calls for the Washington-area rapid transit system, known as the Metro, to be renamed the “Trump Train.” North Carolina Republican Rep. Addison McDowell has introduced legislation to rename Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport.
McDowell said it makes sense to give Dulles a new name since Trump has already announced plans to revamp the airport, which currently is a tribute to former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
The congressman said he wanted to honor Trump because he feels the president has been a champion for combating the scourge of fentanyl, a personal issue for McDowell after his brother’s overdose death. But he also cited Trump’s efforts to strike peace deals all over the world and called him “one of the most consequential presidents ever.”
“I think that’s somebody that deserves to be honored, whether they’re still the president or whether they’re not," he said.
More efforts are underway in Florida, Trump’s adopted home.
Republican state lawmaker Meg Weinberger said she is working on an effort to rename Palm Beach International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport, a potential point of confusion with the Dulles effort.
The boulevard dedicated to Trump on Friday is not the first Florida asphalt to herald Trump upon his return to the White House.
In the south Florida city of Hialeah, officials in December 2024 renamed a street there as President Donald J. Trump Avenue.
Trump, speaking at a Miami business conference the next month, called it a “great honor” and said he loved the mayor for it.
“Anybody that names a boulevard after me, I like,” he said.
He added a few moments later: “A lot of people come back from Hialeah, they say, ‘They just named a road after you.' I say, ‘That’s OK.’ It’s a beginning, right? It’s a start.”
Supporters wave flags as President Donald Trump motorcades through West Palm Beach, Fla., along Southern Boulevard, the stretch of road being dedicated to him, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Attendees wait for President Donald Trump to arrive at a dedication ceremony for a portion of Southern Boulevard, which the Town of Palm Beach Council recently voted to rename,"President Donald J. Trump Boulevard," Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - A sign for the Rose Garden is seen near the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade at the White House, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as a flag pole is installed on the South Lawn of the White House, June 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Workers add President Donald Trump's name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, after a Trump-appointed board voted to rename the institution, in Washington, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - A poster showing the Trump Gold Card is seen as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
