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President Donald Trump backed off a threat he has escalated for weeks on Tuesday, telling reporters he doesn't have any plans to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, according to the Wall Street Journal.

When reporters in the Oval Office asked Trump whether he plans to do so, he replied, “None whatsoever."

"Never did. The press runs away with things. No, I have no intention of firing him," Trump insisted.

The reply was a marked break from the recent past in which Trump proclaimed that Powell's "termination cannot come soon enough" and that he was a "major loser" who is "Mr. Too Late" when it comes to reducing interest rates — even accusing Powell, with no evidence or examples, of manipulating interest rates in 2024 to hurt his presidential campaign.

Trump was the president who initially appointed Powell to lead the Federal Reserve in the first place. However, he has grown enraged at Powell after the central bank head said Trump's tariffs risked price increases and could prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates as soon as Trump would wish.

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Rate cuts generally result in increased borrowing and spending and energize the economy, but can also worsen inflation during periods when prices are rising quickly. In those situations, the Fed generally raises rates, and reduces borrowing and spending, to try to force price stability, which tends to come at a cost of higher unemployment and slower growth.

Complicating any potential move to fire Powell would be the fact that no president has ever removed a Fed chair before the end of their term, and current law doesn't actually provide a legal mechanism to do so, as part of ensuring the central bank maintains its independence from politicians who might seek to manipulate rates for election season.

The Wall Street Journal's own editorial board has condemned Trump's previous threats against Powell, warning that if Trump even tried to remove him, it could send the stock market into chaos.

The Trump administration responded Tuesday to a New York Times report that raised troubling questions about the whereabouts of a Venezuelan migrant in U.S. custody.

But even the Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to clear up the confusion surrounding Ricardo Prada Vasquez, who friends say “simply disappeared,” sent alarm bells ringing for American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.

“It should HORRIFY you that it took a major news story for @DHSGov to say publicly that it imprisoned someone in El Salvador five weeks ago,” Reichlin-Melnick told his social media followers. “The man never once got a trial. No judge ever found him to be a public safety threat or a member of a gang. No due process. No nothing.”

The prominent immigration attorney was reacting to a DHS statement that unsurprisingly pegged Vasquez as a “confirmed member of Tren de Aragua,” who the agency said on Tuesday was removed from the country last month.

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“On Jan. 15, Prada was encountered at the Detroit Windsor Tunnel in Detroit, Michigan attempting to enter the U.S. from Canada and was referred to secondary inspection,” the DHS statement said. “Further investigation resulted in Prada being designated a public safety threat as a confirmed member of TdA and in violation of his conditions of admission. Prada was apprehended and transferred to ICE Michigan for detention. On Feb. 27, an immigration judge ordered Prada removed from the U.S. On March 15, Prada was removed to El Salvador.”

That timeline appears to fit the Times’ reporting that stated Prada had not been heard from or seen since March 15, when the Trump administration flew out planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from Texas to El Salvador.

But, Prada’s name did not appear “on the list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day,” nor did he appear “in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads,” the Times reported.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk's Tesla Motors posted its long-anticipated earnings report — and it painted a dire picture of the company, with net revenue plunging by three-quarters. Experts attributed a large part of the drop to people simply rejecting the brand, as Musk has become close with President Donald Trump and headed up his Department of Government Efficiency task force to dismantle the federal civil service.

Commenters on social media, including both Musk's own X platform and the alternative Bluesky platform, had a field day with the news.

"Tesla just reported what is likely the worst earnings for a mega cap tech company since Meta in February 2022," wrote hedge fund founder Spencer Hakimian.

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"A devastating Tesla earnings report today," wrote the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project. "Net income fell 71%. Total revenue slid 9% from $21.3 billion a year earlier. Tesla stock down 41% so far in 2025, suffered their worst quarterly drop since 2022."

"Tesla posts a $400M profit, down 71% year-over-year. Revenue is down nearly $2B compared to the same time last year. Wow," wrote Washington Post tech journalist and Musk biographer Faiz Siddiqui, adding that the numbers are even worse than they look, because, "Without $595M in automotive regulatory credits, which other manufacturers buy off Tesla to comply with emissions requirements, Tesla would have posted a loss this quarter."

"This is why Republicans were posting pictures with Teslas," wrote former Ohio state senator and progressive activist Nina Turner, referencing the promotional stunt Trump and Musk held with Tesla vehicles on the White House lawn last month.

"Tesla’s the Hindenburg, and frankly it couldn’t happen to a s------r company," wrote anti-Trump author and retired journalism professor Seth Abramson, who added that, "Teslas are — by the data — poorly made, dangerous, aesthetically passé, short on promised luxuries, tied to fascism, and feature poor customer service and allegedly jacked odometers."

The conservative outlet National Review hammered President Donald Trump this week over his recent attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

“If Donald Trump is upset about higher interest rates, he should stop doing just about everything he can to undermine the U.S. economy in the eyes of the world,” the editors wrote.

Between tariffs and the attacks on Powell, the U.S. is becoming “a riskier place to do business," the editors said.

“[When] the independence of the central bank comes under threat from the president, people will demand higher yields to make buying U.S. sovereign debt worth their while.”

The outlet noted the best way to see how “real investors with real money” feel is to watch the market as it reacts to Trump’s decisions. “Their verdict is clear: They don’t like it, they’re going to keep saying so with their money as long as the president doesn’t change course, and that has real negative consequences for Americans.”

“The stock market is down, and that’s bad. Worse is the simultaneous decline in the value of the dollar and the price of U.S. government bonds.”

The editors said declines like this typically happen “in poor countries facing economic crises, not in the richest country in the history of the world.”

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“There’s a constitutional argument to be made that such a restriction on the president’s power is impermissible. But it shouldn’t even get to that point, because firing Powell is not helpful to Trump’s own interests.”

They went on to claim, “Voters want economic stability, and firing Powell would only create more instability.”

America’s debt is also becoming more difficult to finance, meaning the demand for government bonds will go down with it. They believe this means “future tax increases, inflation, or both are on the way.”

The board does have a solution to stop the “chaotic and ill-considered trade and monetary policies,” which is to “keep any one person [Trump] from being able to change them at will. That has been the traditional American practice, and it would be best to follow it.”

A respected immigration attorney expressed his shock and dismay on social media over the fate of a Venezuelan immigrant who disappeared after accidentally crossing into Canada and being detained by U.S. authorities.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, wrote Tuesday, "This story from today is SHOCKING. The United States has disappeared a man. His last known whereabouts on March 15 was in the same place as others sent to El Salvador, but his name doesn't appear on the leaked list of people sent there. He is, for all intents and purposes, gone."

The story Reichlin-Melnick referred to was written by Miriam Jordan, national immigration correspondent for The New York Times.

Jordan wrote about Ricardo Prada Vásquez, who was working a delivery job in Detroit.

He was heading to the address to drop off a McDonald's order "when he erroneously turned onto the Ambassador Bridge, which leads to Canada. It is a common mistake even for those who live in the Michigan border city. But for Mr. Prada, 32, it proved fateful," she wrote.

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U.S. authorities took Prada into custody when he tried to re-enter the country, and he was ordered deported," Jordan wrote.

"That evening, the Trump administration flew three planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from the Texas facility to El Salvador, where they have been ever since, locked up in a maximum-security prison and denied contact with the outside world."

According to Jordan, Prada has not been heard from or seen since.

"He is not on the list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day. He does not appear in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads."

Jordan quoted a friend of Prada's saying, "He has simply disappeared."

"Mr. Prada’s disappearance has created concerns that more immigrants have been deported to El Salvador than previously known," Jordan wrote. "It also raises the question of whether some deportees may have been sent to other countries with no record of it. The U.S. authorities have confirmed that he was removed from the United States. But to where?"

Read The New York Times article here.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) held an event in Estero, Florida, on Monday, where residents of his district expressed their anger over drastic cuts to government agencies that many count on for services.

When he came into office, President Donald Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency by executive order and tasked tech billionaire Elon Musk with finding things to cut. That initiative has been behind the upheaval and dismantling of government agencies. Websites, grants, programs, and employees have been cut or frozen under the promise that Trump will save taxpayers trillions.

Speaking to CNN's Boris Sanchez on Tuesday, chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju called it a "pretty remarkable scene" that Donalds responded to angry constituents by yelling at them.

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"I mean, the question is, how broad is this among the electorate?" he questioned. "We've seen this happen time and time again. Are these Democratic voters who are coming out there expressing their outrage, and probably in a lot of cases, yes. Are there independent voters who are moved by what Donald Trump has been doing, what DOGE has been doing, impacts on their lives, on the tariffs and prices? Are those the ones that are raising concerns? Or are they Trump voters? Are they people who are concerned about the person they voted for into office here?"

He also noted that Donalds' district is in "a very conservative area." He recalled that in 2024, Trump carried the district by 30 points.

"Even that county, where that town hall was in yesterday, Trump won that by 30 points," cited Raju. "So, this is a conservative area. What does it say for the broader electorate? We'll see. But it was interesting."

He pointed to another moment in which Donalds was asked about Musk and others gaining access to personal Social Security files. When he read the question aloud, the crowd cheered.

Donalds answered that Musk and DOGE "have been authorized by the president of the United States."

The crowd booed loudly.

See the clip below or at the link here.

- YouTube www.youtube.com