Live Updates: Trump Threatens to Fire Fed Chief Powell if He Does Not Resign 66%
By Tony Romm0% Colby Smith0% Anton Troianovski0% Eric Schmitt0%
4/15/2026, 12:02:56 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 33 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Biased Writer Voice, and Appeal to Authority, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 31.9% saturation with 499 hits. Analysis detected 3,132 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,566 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 60.6% and a BS Rank of 66% (5,714 of 16,813 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 66.00% of the article peer group.
Live Updates: Trump Threatens to Fire Fed Chief Powell if He Does Not Resign
President Trump, left, and Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve Chairman, during a tour of the central bank’s headquarters last year.
Credit...
Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
What We’re Covering Today
Federal Reserve: President Trump vowed to fire Jerome H.
Powell if he opted to stay on at the Federal Reserve after his term as chair ends, doubling down on a criminal investigation into the central bank that is threatening to delay the confirmation of Mr.
Powell’s successor.
Mr.
Powell’s tenure as chair ends on May 15, but both the law and past precedent suggest that he can serve on a temporary basis until Mr.
Trump’s pick to replace him, Kevin M.
Warsh, is confirmed by the Senate.
Mr.
Powell can also stay on at the central bank as a governor until 2028.
Read more ›
Pope Leo XVI: Vice President JD Vance again attacked Pope Leo XIV over his criticism of the U.S. war with Iran.
Mr.
Vance, who is Catholic, told a conservative audience at the University of Georgia on Tuesday that the pope was wrong to say that disciples of Christ are “never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
Read more ›
Federal Reserve
April 15, 2026, 8:57 a.m.
ET
Tony Romm
President Trump also signaled that he did not believe the Justice Department should drop its investigation into Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair.
Prosecutors are looking into cost overruns in a renovation of the central bank’s headquarters, but they have been blocked from subpoenaing Powell, after a federal judge found the inquiry had clear political motivations.
“I have to find out,” Trump said in his interview with Fox Business, during which he again attacked Powell over interest rates.
April 15, 2026, 8:52 a.m.
ET
President Trump’s suggestion he might fire Jerome Powell if he did not step down as Federal Reserve chair only served to reaffirm his desire to remake the roster of the central bank and install a set of policymakers who share his desire to cut interest rates.
Last year, the president took the extraordinary step of trying to fire another governor on the Fed board, Lisa D.
Cook, triggering a legal challenge that is currently awaiting a decision at the Supreme Court.
Trump threatens to fire Powell if he does not resign from the Fed.
April 15, 2026, 8:32 a.m.
ET
Colby Smith
Colby Smith covers the Federal Reserve.
Image
Jerome Powell has said that he has “no intention of leaving the board” of the Fed until a criminal investigation into his handling of renovations at the central bank’s headquarters was “well and truly over.”
Credit...
Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
President Trump on Wednesday vowed to fire Jerome H.
Powell if he opted to stay on at the Federal Reserve after his term as chair ends, doubling down on a criminal investigation into the central bank that is threatening to delay the confirmation of Mr.
Powell’s successor.
Mr.
Powell’s tenure as chair officially ends on May 15, but both the law and past precedent suggest that he can serve on a temporary basis until Mr.
Trump’s pick to replace him, Kevin M.
Warsh, is confirmed by the Senate.
Mr.
Powell can also stay on at the central bank as a governor until 2028.
The process to confirm Mr.
Warsh is tied up in the Justice Department’s investigation into Mr.
Powell and his handling of costly renovations at the Fed’s headquarters in Washington.
Mr.
Trump said on Wednesday that the investigation was about showing Mr.
Powell’s “incompetence.”
Federal prosecutors have faced a litany of legal setbacks in their pursuit of the case, with a judge as recently as this month denying the department’s request to reconsider an earlier ruling that quashed subpoenas issued to the central bank.
Mr.
Powell told reporters in March that he had “no intention of leaving the board until the investigation is well and truly over, with transparency and finality.”
His decision to stay or go would ultimately be based on what he thought was “best for the institution and for the people we serve,” Mr.
Powell said.
This is a developing story.
Please check back for updates.
Pope Leo XIV
April 14, 2026, 9:05 p.m.
ET
Anton Troianovski
Reporting from Washington
Vice President JD Vance spoke at a Turning Point USA event in Athens, Ga., on Tuesday.
Credit...
Alyssa Pointer/Reuters
Vance says the pope should be more careful when talking about theology.
Vice President JD Vance invoked World War II on Tuesday to defend the U.S. bombing of Iran from criticism by Pope Leo XIV, extending the Trump administration’s spat with the Catholic Church and underlining the White House’s struggle to justify an unpopular war.
Mr.
Vance, who is Catholic, told a conservative audience at the University of Georgia that the pope was wrong to say that disciples of Christ are “never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”
“Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis?”
Mr.
Vance said after referring to the pope’s comment.
“I certainly think the answer is yes.”
President Trump has appeared stung by Leo’s condemnation of the war, criticism that has highlighted the challenge the administration faces from the coalition of conservative and religious voters who helped elect Mr.
Trump in 2024.
The president lashed out at the pope on Sunday in a social media post that called the first American-born pontiff “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy.”
Leo has stuck to his antiwar stance, telling reporters Monday that he had “no fear of the Trump administration.”
Without mentioning Iran or Mr.
Trump, the pope posted on social media on Tuesday that “God’s heart is torn apart by wars, violence, injustice and lies.”
The back-and-forth has presented a particular quandary for Mr.
Vance, a convert to Catholicism who is publishing a book about his path to the faith and who has long courted the Republican religious base.
Asked about the debate between Mr.
Trump and the pope at an Athens, Ga., event hosted by the conservative group Turning Point USA, Mr.
Vance admonished Leo, saying that if he was “going to opine on matters of theology,” his comments needed to be “anchored in the truth.”
“In the same way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology,” Mr.
Vance said.
Video
Vance Gets Heckled at Turning Point Event and Pushes Back Against Pope
An audience member heckled Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday at a Turning Point USA event.
And Vance addressed Pope Leo’s criticism of the war in Iran, saying he should be careful when speaking about theology.
Credit...
Pool photo by Chip Somodevilla
But the vice president also echoed the diplomatic approach he took on Fox News on Monday in playing down the political disagreement.
“I have a lot of respect for the pope.
I like him.
I admire him.
I’ve gotten to know him a little bit,” Mr.
Vance said.
“It doesn’t bother me when he speaks on issues of the day — frankly, even when I disagree with how he’s applying a particular principle.”
Moments later, someone in the crowd interrupted, yelling, “Jesus Christ does not support genocide!”
It was an apparent reference to Israel’s war in Gaza.
“I agree,” Mr.
Vance responded.
“Jesus Christ certainly does not support genocide, whoever yelled that out from the dark.”
Ben Shpigel contributed reporting from New York.
More Administration News
April 14, 2026, 7:42 p.m.
ET
Eric Schmitt
The U.S.
Southern Command, led by Gen.
Francis L.
Donovan of the Marine Corps, announced the latest strike on Tuesday.
Credit...
Eric Lee for The New York Times
The Pentagon says four were killed in the latest boat strike in the Pacific.
For the second time in two days, the U.S. military struck a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, killing four people.
The latest strike raised the death toll in the campaign by the United States against people it accuses of smuggling drugs at sea to at least 174 .
The U.S.
Southern Command, led by Gen.
Francis L.
Donovan of the Marine Corps, announced the strike on social media with a 16-second video that showed a stationary boat floating in the water and then exploding.
Legal specialists on the use of lethal force have said the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because the military cannot deliberately target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence, even if those people are suspected of engaging in criminal acts.
The Trump administration has not provided evidence of drug smuggling.
The Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean from headquarters near Miami, cited unspecified intelligence in the announcement.
It said the boat had been traveling on “known narco-trafficking routes” and was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
The attack, the 50th since the U.S. campaign against the boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific started in early September, continued a recent increase in the pace of strikes.
Analysis
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