Flashback: How Trump changed his tune about Fed chair Powell

What's changed since then is that the Fed hiked interest rates, but Trump had to see it coming.

• When Powell was confirmed by the Senate, the Fed had already upped rates five times since 2015.
• Even before Powell officially took office, central bankers had indicated more hikes were coming.

Then-candidate Trump criticized prior Fed chair Janet Yellen for not raising rates.

• In a 2016 CNBC interview, Trump accused Yellen of being politically motivated, keeping interest rates too low for too long, and creating a "false stock market."
• Now Trump blames the Powell Fed‘s rate hikes for market volatility, even though rates still remain very low by historical standards.

The bottom line: Trump does not plan to stop criticizing Powell, as Axios’ Jonathan Swan reported, but he's walking into a lose-lose. Either the Fed will continue to raise rates, thus reaffirming its independence from the White House, or it will slow those raises because it believes the economy is slowing down.