The Fed once decided to compromise with Trump in order to maintain the independence of key decision-making.

On December 23, The Washington Post published an article titled “The Strategy for Maintaining Federal Reserve Independence Under Trump” which pointed out that in the spring of 2025, the 12 regional reserve bank presidents of the Fed held a closed-door meeting in Philadelphia, focusing on a highly sensitive topic: whether to cut about 10% of the Fed's staff in response to the federal government downsizing plan pushed by the Trump administration. Some regional presidents opposed this, arguing that it could undermine the Fed's operational capacity. However, the overall outcome of the discussion was that the Fed's senior management decided to alleviate political pressure by partially accommodating certain demands from the Trump administration, thereby better protecting the central bank's independence in key decision-making and avoiding direct confrontation. Subsequently, in May 2025, Fed Chair Jerome Powell issued an internal memo to staff, announcing that the total number of employees would be reduced by about 10% in the coming years (from approximately 24,000 to about 22,000) by the end of 2027.