Powell defends Federal Reserve in Princeton speech amid onslaught of attacks from Trump

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is defending the central bank’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also praised government employees and U.S. universities during a Princeton University commencement speech Sunday. Powell is an alumni of the Ivy League school. Powell and the Fed have been subject to extensive criticism in recent weeks by Trump and a potential successor for the central bank's unchanged key rates and inflation. Powell has acknowledged that the Fed could have moved quicker to raise interest rates once inflation began to rise in 2021. Still, on Sunday, he defended the Fed’s pandemic record.