Breitbart’s Case Against Jerome Powell—and the Hard Data That Complicates the Call for His Exit

At 8:30 a.m. on a sticky June morning in 2022, the Labor Department dropped a number that detonated across trading floors: inflation at 9.1 percent, the hottest print since 1981. Conservative media seized on the moment. Within hours, Breitbart splashed its verdict—Jerome Powell had failed, the Federal Reserve had lost control, and the chairman’s exit had become a moral and economic necessity. The argument stuck. It still circulates in campaign speeches, donor memos, and cable-news chyrons. But markets, stubborn and unsentimental, tell a more complicated story.

The Core Indictment: Powell as Architect of Pain

Breitbart’s case against Powell follows a tight script. First charge: he kept rates too low for too long, enabling a debt-fueled spending binge. Second: his sudden pivot to aggressive tightening crushed working families with higher mortgage, auto-loan, and credit-card rates. Third: he allegedly bent the Fed toward Democratic priorities—climate risk, racial equity, and deficit accommodation—abandoning the central bank’s apolitical mandate.

The publication often points to a simple timeline. In March 2020, Powell slashed the federal funds rate to near zero and launched unlimited quantitative easing. By 2021, headline inflation surged past 5 percent. Yet the Fed waited until March 2022 to lift rates. Breitbart writers frame that delay as negligence bordering on malpractice, arguing that Powell ignored obvious warning signs to protect asset prices and the Biden administration’s fiscal agenda.

The critique resonates emotionally because it maps neatly onto lived experience. Mortgage rates jumped from roughly 3 percent in late 2021 to over 7 percent by October 2023, according to Freddie Mac. Credit-card APRs crossed 21 percent, the highest since the Fed began tracking the series in 1994. Inflation, even after cooling, left grocery prices up about 25 percent since January 2020, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pain feels personal. Powell wears the blame.

The Political Undercurrent Breitbart Won’t Admit

Breitbart frames its argument as technocratic, but politics hum beneath every line. Powell, after all, isn’t a Democratic appointee. Donald Trump nominated him in 2017 and lobbied aggressively for negative rates when markets wobbled in 2019. The outlet rarely mentions that history. Nor does it dwell on the fiscal side of the equation: Congress authorized roughly $5 trillion in pandemic relief across three administrations. Monetary policy didn’t operate in a vacuum.

The Fed’s independence sits at the heart of the fight. Calls for Powell’s ouster collide with statutory reality. A Fed chair serves a four-year term and can only be removed “for cause,” a standard courts interpret narrowly. Attempts to politicize removal risk rattling the very bond market conservatives claim to defend. When investors smell political interference, they demand a premium. That premium shows up as higher yields—exactly the opposite of what rate-weary households want.

The Data That Complicates the Narrative

Strip away the rhetoric and the data complicates the call for Powell’s exit. Start with inflation itself. After peaking at 9.1 percent in June 2022, headline CPI fell to 3.4 percent by December 2023 and hovered near 3 percent through mid-2024. Core inflation cooled more slowly but still dropped from 6.6 percent to around 3.5 percent over the same period. Few advanced economies pulled off faster disinflation without a deep recession.

Employment tells another inconvenient story. The U.S. unemployment rate stayed below 4 percent from December 2021 through most of 2024, the longest such stretch since the late 1960s. Wage growth for production and nonsupervisory workers averaged roughly 4 percent in 2023, outpacing inflation and delivering real gains after a brutal 2021–2022 squeeze. The soft landing Powell promised looked implausible—until it didn’t.

Financial stability metrics also resist easy condemnation. Bank failures in March 2023—Silicon Valley Bank, Signature, First Republic—sparked panic. Yet contagion stopped quickly. The Fed’s Bank Term Funding Program stabilized deposits without reigniting inflation. Equity markets rebounded. By the end of 2024, the S&P 500 had recouped losses and then some, reflecting earnings growth rather than stimulus-fueled froth.

Markets Care Less About Ideology Than Credibility

Traders don’t read Breitbart for guidance. They watch forward guidance, dot plots, and inflation breakevens. When Powell speaks, Treasury yields move because investors believe he will do what he says, even when it hurts politically. That credibility took years to earn and minutes to lose.

Consider inflation expectations. The five-year, five-year forward breakeven rate—a market-based proxy for long-term inflation expectations—rarely exceeded 2.5 percent during the inflation spike. Anchored expectations gave the Fed room to tighten without triggering a wage-price spiral. Fire Powell under political pressure and those expectations unmoor. History offers a cautionary tale: President Nixon’s pressure on Fed Chair Arthur Burns in the early 1970s produced short-term relief and long-term inflation hell.

Bond markets already price U.S. fiscal risk. Ten-year Treasury yields flirted with 5 percent in October 2023, driven less by Fed policy than by swelling deficits and heavy issuance. Replacing Powell wouldn’t shrink a $34 trillion national debt. It might raise borrowing costs by signaling chaos at the central bank.

Where Breitbart’s Critique Lands a Real Punch

Dismissing the critique entirely would miss legitimate concerns. Powell underestimated inflation in 2021. He leaned too hard on the “transitory” narrative long after supply chains healed and demand roared. That delay forced more aggressive hikes later, amplifying pain in rate-sensitive sectors like housing.

The Fed’s communication missteps also deserve scrutiny. Shifting rationales—from pandemic slack to supply shocks to labor-market tightness—confused households and lawmakers alike. Clarity matters when policy works through expectations as much as mechanics.

Finally, asset inequality widened during the era of easy money. Homeowners and equity holders benefited first; renters and late buyers paid the price. Monetary policy didn’t cause inequality alone, but it interacted with zoning laws, tax policy, and fiscal transfers in ways the Fed still struggles to address honestly.

Economic Relevance: What Powell’s Fate Means for Markets

The question investors should ask isn’t whether Powell deserves criticism. It’s what his exit would do to portfolios. A forced removal would likely trigger:

• Higher Treasury yields as investors price political risk into U.S. debt.
• A weaker dollar if global capital seeks jurisdictions with stronger institutional independence.
• Short-term equity volatility, especially in financials and rate-sensitive sectors.
• Longer-term inflation risk if markets doubt the Fed’s willingness to stay restrictive.

Stability, even imperfect stability, carries a premium. Markets reward predictability more than purity.

Tools Smart Investors Use to Cut Through the Noise

Serious readers don’t rely on headlines alone. They track the plumbing.

• CME FedWatch Tool: Futures-implied probabilities show how traders price upcoming rate moves in real time.
• FRED Economic Database: The St. Louis Fed’s free data trove lets users chart inflation, wages, and yields without spin.
• iShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP): A straightforward way to hedge portfolios against unexpected inflation.
• TreasuryDirect Series I Savings Bonds: Still useful for conservative savers seeking inflation protection, despite lower post-2022 rates.
• Invesco DB Agriculture Fund (DBA): For those watching food inflation as an early-warning signal.

These tools don’t pick sides. They reward discipline.

The Counterfactual Few Discuss

Imagine Powell gone tomorrow, replaced by a chair explicitly aligned with partisan priorities. Would mortgage rates fall? Unlikely. Would inflation magically vanish? History laughs at the idea. More plausibly, uncertainty spikes, risk premiums rise, and the Fed’s dual mandate fractures under political weight.

The hard truth: monetary policy can’t fix supply chains, zoning laws, or trillion-dollar deficits. Blaming Powell for Congress’s fiscal choices offers emotional release, not economic repair.

Practical Takeaways for Readers Navigating the Powell Wars

• Separate policy errors from institutional risk. Criticize decisions without undermining the framework that keeps borrowing costs lower.
• Watch expectations, not outrage. Inflation breakevens and yield curves matter more than op-eds.
• Diversify rate exposure. Balance fixed-rate debt with assets that benefit from higher yields.
• Stay data-driven. Monthly CPI prints, wage data, and Treasury auctions tell you more than any political broadside.

Powell’s tenure will invite debate long after he leaves the Marriner Eccles Building. Breitbart’s critique captures real frustration, but frustration doesn’t move markets—credibility does. The data suggests that for all his missteps, Powell preserved the one asset the Fed can’t print: trust. And once lost, no chairman, left or right, wins it back easily.