Trump says he'll name a new Fed chair 'a little bit early'

President Donald Trump said he'll name a new Federal Reserve Chair "a little bit early," without giving a timeline.

He's down to "three or four names — all great," he said in an event at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Once again, he lambasted current Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates. "We should be down at 1% because we're the leader of the world... We were always the lowest interest rate until like a certain time ago, a decade, a couple."

Trump didn't answer a question on whether he will file a lawsuit against Powell for his handling of a multi-billion-dollar Federal Reserve building renovation project.

"He took a building that could have been painted and fixed.. what they did to this building," Trump commented. He blamed much of the cost of building a basement under the Fed headquarters.

"They did a job that shouldn't have been done... I think it's just grossly incompetent, but not quite as incompetent as his decision not to do interest rates, take down interest rates," Trump said. "Just like they shouldn't have taken down a ceiling, they should take down interest rates."

"I believe we should be 3 or 4 points lower," he added [https://www.whitehouse.gov/videos/president-trump-visits-the-kennedy-center-and-makes-an-announcement/].

He also repeated that each point of the federal funds interest rate costs the U.S. government $360B a year of interest it pays on debt.

"We should be down at 1% because we're the leader of the world... We were always the lowest interest rate until like a certain time ago, a decade, a couple," Trump said, blaming Powell for high mortgage rates.

"People aren't able to get good mortgages because of Jerome 'Too Late' Powell," he said.

DEAR READERS: We recognize that politics often intersects with the financial news of the day, so we invite you to click here to join the separate political discussion. [https://seekingalpha.com/article/4802951-politics-and-the-markets-081325]

MORE ON US INTEREST RATES

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* Bessent suggests that Fed should be open to half-point cut [https://seekingalpha.com/news/4484548-bessent-suggests-that-fed-should-be-open-to-half-point-cut-report]
* KC Fed's Schmid still sees a 'patient approach' on rates as appropriate [https://seekingalpha.com/news/4483952-kc-feds-schmid-still-sees-a-patient-approach-and-current-policy-rate-as-appropriate#hasComeFromMpArticle=false#source=section%3Amain_content%7Cbutton%3Abody_link%7Cfirst_level_url%3Anews]
*
Investors are getting ahead of themselves by pricing in a 50bp rate cut – JPM [https://seekingalpha.com/news/4484051-investors-are-getting-ahead-of-themselves-by-pricing-in-a-50bp-rate-cut-jpms-gabriela-santos#hasComeFromMpArticle=false#source=section%3Amain_content%7Cbutton%3Abody_link%7Cfirst_level_url%3Anews]