Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell praised his predecessor Paul Volcker’s willingness to resist political pressure in a speech Saturday, days after indicating he would remain at the helm of the central bank past his May term expiration if his successor hasn’t been confirmed.
The remarks come after President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked Powell and the Fed for not bringing interest rates lower, raising pointed questions about the central bank’s independence. They also come at a moment when Powell is weighing how his legacy will be shaped once he does step down.
Accepting the Paul Volcker Public Integrity Award from the American Society for Public Administration, Powell called Volcker “perhaps our greatest public servant in the economic arena” and described Volcker’s fight against double-digit inflation in the early 1980s as a model of principled leadership. Volcker raised interest rates to levels that contributed to a recession and drew fierce criticism from Congress and the Reagan White House, but held his course until inflation broke.
“His willingness to resist short-term pressures in the interest of achieving lasting price stability demonstrated the courage and long-term perspective that define principled public service,” Powell said. He added that Volcker’s career showed that “independence and integrity are inseparable.”
“Our integrity is all we have,” Powell said when closing his speech.
Powell didn’t mention Trump or the Justice Department’s ongoing criminal investigation of him, which centers on Powell’s congressional testimony about the Fed’s $2.5 billion headquarters renovation. Powell has called the probe a pretext to punish the central bank for not lowering interest rates on the president’s preferred timeline. A federal judge quashed the DOJ’s subpoenas last week, writing that the government had offered no real evidence of a crime, but U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has said she would appeal.
During a Wednesday press conference held after the Fed’s March policy decision to keep rates steady, Powell said that he would serve as chair pro-tem if Trump’s nominee to replace him, Kevin Warsh, isn’t confirmed by the time his term expires on May 15. Powell also said he has “no intention of leaving the board until the investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality.” His seat on the Fed’s board of governors runs through January 2028.
Warsh’s confirmation is currently stalled in the Senate. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina on the Banking Committee, has vowed to block any Fed nominee until the investigation is dropped, and all Democrats on the panel are also opposed to moving forward. The committee has yet to schedule a hearing.
Powell’s own inflation fight has followed a different arc than Volcker’s. After the Fed was slow to respond to rising prices in 2021, Powell raised rates aggressively over the following two years and brought inflation down from above 9% to roughly 2.5% without causing a recession.
But progress has recently stalled. Core inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target, and the Iran war has introduced a supply shock that, in part, pushed the central bank to revise its 2026 inflation forecast upward to 2.7% at its March policy meeting. The Federal Open Market Committee voted 11-1 on Wednesday to hold interest rates steady for the second time this year.
The Volcker award is given annually to recognize contributions to public administration. Powell is also set to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on May 31 for, in the foundation’s words, “protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve.”
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