Archive July 3, 2025

The most recent attack in a string of attacks that have raised questions about the US central bank’s independence has been repeated by President Trump.

After his administration’s top housing regulator urged the US Congress to launch an investigation into the central banker, Trump called on Powell to “resign immediately.”

In a post on X, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte claimed Powell should be investigated for giving “deceptive testimony” regarding renovations at the Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, DC.

Trump said “Too Late,” a nickname used to criticize Powell for slowing down rates, should resign in a Truth Social post in response to Pulte’s comments.

Trump’s most recent broadside comes days after he wrote Powell a letter urging him to “a lot” lower the benchmark interest rate, which is currently set at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent.

The US president has repeatedly criticized Powell for not backing faster rate increases, arguing that the central banker’s cautious approach is halting economic growth and overblown inflation concerns.

Lower interest rates help businesses and consumers pay less for borrowing, boosting economic growth.

However, rate cuts also have the opposite effect, raising inflation, which central banks typically prefer to keep low, and Trump’s broad-based tariffs are generally expected to cause prices to rise.

In a panel discussion on Tuesday at the European Central Bank Forum in Portugal, Powell claimed that the central bank had waited to see the effects of Trump’s tariffs, many of which are still pending in preparation for a July 9 deadline.

We put the size of the tariffs on hold, according to Powell, and essentially all of the US’s inflation forecasts increased significantly as a result of the tariffs.

“We didn’t react too strongly,” he said. We simply take a little time; in fact, we didn’t react at all.

Since taking office in January, Trump has repeatedly demanded that Powell step down or be removed. His term won’t expire until May 2026.

Trump stated to reporters last week that he would “love” for Powell to step down “if he wanted to.”

After stocks and the US dollar drastically dropped, Trump said in April that Powell’s “termination cannot come fast enough.”

The US president is only permitted to fire the Fed chair “for cause,” which is widely accepted to mean specific misconduct, not policy making.

In a ruling that highlighted the Federal Reserve as having a distinct status in comparison to other independent organizations, the US Supreme Court reaffirmed precedent that had limited the president’s authority to remove the president’s top central banker in May.

In line with his wider immigration crackdown, a federal court has determined that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority by excluding asylum applications from the country’s southern border.

US District Judge Randolph Moss issued a warning on Wednesday that Trump’s actions would lead to the “presidentially decreed, alternative immigration system” being created in opposition to the laws that were passed by Congress.

Prior to now, the nation’s laws had ascribed the right to asylum. However, President Trump invoked the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) on January 20 when he took office for a second term.

According to Trump, “this authority” includes the right to impose restrictions on access to certain areas of the immigration system and to prevent foreign nationals from entering the country physically.

However, Judge Moss, a former president of the United States, refrained from making that claim in his 128-page decision (PDF).

According to Moss, “Nothing in the INA or the Constitution grants the President or his delegatees the sweeping authority that the Proclamation asserts.”

He emphasized that the president was not authorized to “replace the comprehensive rules and procedures” in US immigration law with an “extra-statutory, extraregulatory regime.”

When people are feared for their safety or safety, they go through the asylum process known as asylum. Successful applicants are permitted to remain in the country despite the high acceptance bar for asylum applications.

Trump, however, refers to immigration from the US to Mexico as an “invasion” led by foreign powers.

He has cited that justification to support the suspension of asylum rights.

However, Judge Moss ruled that if asylum was suspended, sufferers of persecution could suffer significant harm.

There is a good chance that tens of thousands of people will be defrauded of the legal processes they are entitled to if the Proclamation is continued in effect while an appeal is pending, according to Moss.

He gave the Trump administration, however, a 14-day appeals window. The administration must follow their instructions.

In response to the ruling on Wednesday, White House spokesman Abigail Jackson said, “A local district court judge has no authority to prevent President Trump and the United States from securing our border from the flood of aliens trying to enter illegally.” We anticipate being proven right on appeal.

The administration also asserted in court documents that it had the authority to determine whether or not the US was facing invasion.

Government lawyers wrote that the determination that the United States is facing an invasion is a question that cannot be answered politically.

Judge Moss sympathized with another administration’s claim that applications had simply been flooded with applications.

The Court acknowledged that the Executive Branch had to deal with significant difficulties in deciding whether to grant asylum to those who entered the country and preventing and deterring unlawful entry, he wrote.

However, he came to the conclusion that US laws did not grant President Trump “the unilateral authority to enact laws that restrict the rights of foreigners seeking asylum.”

Immigrant rights organizations, including the Florence Project, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, and RAICES, filed a class-action complaint as a result of the decision.

The decision was welcomed by the American Civil Liberties Union as a significant step in upholding both the rights of immigrants and the authority to pass laws.

Authorities claim that a ferry carrying 65 people sank off Bali, Indonesia’s resort island, killing at least four people and leaving dozens more without.

According to Indonesia’s search and rescue organization, Badan Nasional Pencarian dan Pertolongan, &nbsp, on Thursday, the KMP Tunu Pratama Jaya sank shortly after leaving East Java’s Banyuwangi port.

According to officials, the rescue operations, which include nine vessels, have resulted in the rescue of 23 survivors.

Many of the survivors, according to Rama Samtama Putra, the police chief in Banyuwangi, were initially unconscious after hours of drifting in the ocean.

According to Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who is currently in Saudi Arabia, ordered an immediate immediate emergency response, adding that the accident was caused by “bad weather.”

In Indonesia, an archipel of about 17, 000 islands, where lax safety standards frequently cause vessels to be overloaded without adequate life-saving equipment, maritime disasters are a common occurrence.

An Australian woman was killed and at least one other person was hurt when a boat carrying 16 people sank in rough waters off Bali in March.