Fed Chair Powell Will Make Rare TV Appearance on Thursday

(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will make a rare televised interview appearance in a Thursday broadcast, as the U.S. central bank deploys an unprecedented array of tools to prevent the health crisis from becoming a financial one.

Powell will be interviewed on the NBC Today show -- one of the country’s main morning television programs -- at 7:05 a.m. New York time, according to an advisory released by the Fed.

It will mark the Fed chief’s first public remarks since he held an unusual Sunday evening press briefing by teleconference on March 15. That was following a policy meeting that the central bank conducted days early in order to speed stimulus to the economy and financial system.

Powell will be speaking days after the Fed announced a sweeping series of measures to head off a cripping credit crunch as businesses struggle with a slide in revenue and surge in funding costs. Included in the plans: a Main Street lending program directly aimed at aiding small businesses.

Communication from the Fed chair has for decades been carefully choreographed, given the importance of signals to the public and to investors in particular. Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan curbed on-the-record interviews with the press after a 1987 appearance on ABC’s “This Week with David Brinkley,” following which stocks dropped.

As the lines between monetary and fiscal policy blurred during the financial crisis, with the Fed vastly expanding its balance sheet, pressure grew for greater public accountability. Ben Bernanke, who led the Fed at the time, made his own rare appearance in a televised interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program in March 2009.

Bernanke returned to that show in December 2010, when he mounted a defense of the Fed’s record expansion in monetary stimulus. The following year, he conducted the first press conferences by a Fed chair after policy meetings.

Janet Yellen, who succeeded Bernanke and preceded Powell, expressed regret in a PBS NewsHour television interview -- on her last day on the job -- that President Donald Trump hadn’t reappointed her.

The stimulus package cleared by the Senate and awaiting approval by the House of Representatives on Friday could vastly expand the Fed’s firepower, allowing it to act as a bridge to sustain businesses during the coronavirus crisis.

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