FRONTLINE Investigates President Trump’s Unprecedented Challenges to the Federal Reserve in New Documentary

The President vs. the Fed

Watch the documentary starting May 12, 2026, at 10/9c at pbs.org/frontline, in the PBS App, on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel. It will also be available on PBS Documentaries on Prime Video. 

Over the past six months, a reporting team from FRONTLINE has been examining President Donald Trump’s unprecedented attempts to assert control over the most powerful institution in the U.S. economy: the Federal Reserve.

What they found unfolds in a revelatory new documentary premiering Tues., May 12, on PBS — just days before current Fed chair and frequent Trump target Jerome Powell’s term ends and he is succeeded by Trump’s pick for a new chair, Kevin Warsh.

From award-winning filmmakers James Jacoby and Anya Bourg (The Age of Easy Money, Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover, The Facebook Dilemma), The President vs. the Fed illuminates the roots and stakes of Trump’s battle with Powell over the decisions and independence of the country’s central bank as it steers the economy through an increasingly precarious moment.

“When you look at Trump’s economic agenda, this fight is actually the most consequential of his presidency,” journalist Christopher Leonard says of Trump, who has repeatedly called on the Fed to cut interest rates and tried to influence the institution’s decisions. “I think he knows that his economic and political success is dependent on what the Fed does. And so this attack for him is almost existential.”

To trace how the battle has unfolded, The President vs. the Fed draws on interviews with former and current Fed officials, economists, titans of finance, legal experts, journalists, and critics of the president as well as some of his staunchest defenders. In the documentary, a sitting Fed official, Neel Kashkari, speaks out about the Trump administration’s threat to indict Powell in a Department of Justice investigation.

“I mean, in the 113-year history of the Fed, nothing like this has ever happened before,” Kashkari tells FRONTLINE. “It just was clear that this was a pretext: ‘We don’t like your monetary policy decisions, so we’re going to change the people making the decisions.’”

As the documentary reports, Congress designed the Fed to be insulated from political interference so it would be free to act in the long-term interest of the economy, including by making at-times unpopular monetary policy decisions. But Trump allies argue the Fed’s independence has shielded it from accountability for its mistakes, including on inflation during the COVID pandemic, and that Trump was within his rights to try to force Powell out.

“If Trump behaves like a king, Chair Powell behaves like an emperor,” Judy Shelton, a former Trump economic adviser, tells FRONTLINE.

With clarity and precision, The President vs. the Fed examines where the battle stands now — and how, with inflation on the rise amid the effects of the Iran war and Trump tariff fallout, Kevin Warsh’s Fed will likely face not only a tricky political landscape but an economic one as well.

For the full story, watch The President vs. the Fed. The documentary will be available to watch starting May 12, 2026, at 10/9c at pbs.org/frontline, on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel and on PBS stations (check local listings). The President vs. the Fed will also be available on PBS Documentaries on Prime Video. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcasts and additional reporting related to The President vs. the Fed.

Credits The President vs. the Fed is a FRONTLINE production with Left/Right Docs. The director and correspondent is James Jacoby. The producers and writers are Anya Bourg and James Jacoby. The senior producer is Frank Koughan. The managing editor of FRONTLINE is Andrew Metz. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

About FRONTLINE FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won an Academy Award® as well as every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 110 Emmy Awards and 35 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with major support from Ford Foundation, and The Fialkow Family Foundation, as part of the Plum Bush Foundation. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Trust, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and Corey David Sauer, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen, and Laura DeBonis and Scott Nathan.

Press Contact: Anne Husted Blatt, Director of Marketing & Communications | frontlinemedia@wgbh.org