Powell has said politics don't play a part in Fed rate decisions. He and his colleagues have held the key overnight borrowing rate in place since December, though markets largely expect a cut is on the way not at the Fed's July meeting, but in September.

“The President is extremely troubled by your management of the Federal Reserve System,” Vought wrote in a letter he posted to social media Thursday.

Powell, speaking in Sintra, Portugal, at a conference hosted by the European Central Bank, also said that U.S. inflation is likely to pick up later this summer, though he acknowledged that the timing...

The Supreme Court said in May that it could block any attempts by the White House to dismiss Powell, noting as part of a separate ruling that the Fed “is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity.”...