“The US economy is in a pretty good position,” Powell said. “Inflation has come down. We’re healthy overall. If you ignore the tariffs for a second, inflation is behaving pretty much exactly as we have expected and hoped that it would. We haven’t seen effects much yet from tariffs, and we didn’t expect to by now. We’ve always said that the timing, amount, and persistence of the inflation would be highly uncertain.
“We’re watching. We expect to see over the summer some higher readings. But we’re prepared to learn. It could be higher or lower, or later, or sooner than we expected.”
As expected, the Trump administration responded swiftly to Powell’s comments. William J. Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), expressed his views on his X account. In response to a post stating that Powell was calling for higher inflation readings this summer, Pulte responded with “Moron.”
Moron https://t.co/bhDulaQMPe
— Pulte (@pulte) July 1, 2025
He had additional thoughts in a previous post, also blaming the Biden administration for inflation and increased mortgage costs.
“Jerome Powell’s tenure as Fed Chair has been a masterclass in economic Mismanagement,” Pulte said on X. “Under Biden, his Reckless money-printing fueled 40-year-high inflation, doubled mortgage payments, and triggered historic bank collapses like SVB—leaving retirees and homeowners holding the bag.”