“With stocks extending their slide Monday, President Trump took another swipe at the Federal Reserve, writing on Twitter that the ‘only problem our economy has is the Fed’ as he continued to blame the central bank for recent volatility in the financial markets,” the New York Times reports.

“But Mr. Trump’s comments only exacerbated the sell-off on Wall Street, and stocks were on track for their worst year since 2008 and the largest December decline since the 1930s. The S&P 500 closed down 2.7 percent after a shortened trading session because of the Christmas holiday.”

“President Trump has unabashedly hitched his political fortunes to a rising stock market. Now, with stock prices in retreat, he has become increasingly fixated on the idea that one man is to blame for the recent rout: Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve,” the New York Times reports.

“After the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, the fifth consecutive quarterly increase, Mr. Trump fretted to aides that Mr. Powell would ‘turn me into Hoover,’ a reference to the man who was president in the early years of the Great Depression. Mr. Trump has said choosing Mr. Powell for the Fed job last year was the worst mistake of his presidency and he has asked aides whether he has the power to fire him.”

“But the volatile stock market, which just posted its worst week since 2008, is falling in part because of Mr. Trump’s own policies, including an escalating trade war with China, a shutdown of the federal government and the fading effects of the $1.5 trillion tax cut Mr. Trump ushered in at the end of 2017.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “startled financial analysts, bankers and economists on Sunday by issuing an unusual statement declaring that the nation’s six largest banks had ample credit to extend to American businesses and households,” the Washington Post reports.

“Several analysts said Sunday night that his outreach to the banks and subsequent statement were likely to backfire and drive even more concern.”

Politico: “Treasury did not say what motivated the statement.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin denied an earlier report that President Trump has spoken privately about firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell following the Fed’s decision to hike interest rates for the fourth time during his tenure, Axios reports.

As the earlier report notes, firing Powell “could have potentially devastating ripple effects across financial markets.”

President Trump “has discussed firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as his frustration with the central bank chief intensified following this week’s interest-rate increase and months of stock-market losses,” Bloomberg reports.

“Advisers close to Trump aren’t convinced he would move against Powell and are hoping that the president’s latest bout of anger will dissipate over the holidays… Some of Trump’s advisers have warned him that firing Powell would be a disastrous move.”

“Yet the president has talked privately about firing Powell many times in the past few days.”

The Federal Reserve Board will announce whether it will continue to hike interest rates at 2:30 p.m.

Axios: “There’s never been a Federal Reserve interest-rate decision quite like this, with the central bank facing public criticism from the president and a whipsawing stock market.”

Financial Times: “Fed officials have signaled they will boost rates by a quarter point at the meeting, and holding fire would look skittish, according to analysts and strategists. It would send a markedly downbeat signal about the economic outlook; it might indicate the Fed is overly influenced by market turbulence; and it would trigger claims that the president is influencing policy.”

“As the stock market churned this week, President Trump anxiously called advisers both inside and outside the White House looking for validation that his talks with China were not driving the sell-off,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Fresh off what he described as a ‘historic’ weekend meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping, Mr. Trump has questioned why the markets weren’t reacting more positively to the news of his potential breakthrough with Beijing. In consulting with advisers, he remained convinced that the volatility wasn’t his own doing, but rather, the product of the Federal Reserve’s plan to raise the benchmark interest rate.”

“But investors—and many within his administration—saw it differently… Publicly, Mr. Trump has often dismissed market fluctuations as part of a natural correction, but several people close to the president say he places as much importance on the health of the Dow Jones Industrial Average for validation of his job performance as he does with his polling numbers.”

Barclays disagrees that the stock market would plummet if President Trump were impeached, Bloomberg reports.

Writes William Hobbs, head of investment strategy: “We doubt that capital markets would collapse if President Trump’s administration was endangered, either electorally or indeed legally. The forward momentum of the world economy, and therefore its capital markets, has little to do with the actions of the White House, past, present or future, in our opinion.”

“The top government official overseeing the $1.5 trillion student loan market resigned Monday, citing what he says is the White House’s open hostility toward protecting nation’s millions of student loan borrowers,” the AP reports.

“Seth Frotman is the latest high-level departure from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since Mick Mulvaney took over in late November. Under Mulvaney, the bureau has scaled back its enforcement work and has proposed revising or rescinding all of the rules and regulations it put into place under the Obama administration.”

President Trump took another swipe at the Federal Reserve in an interview with Reuters, expressing concern that the central bank is raising interest rates after years of holding borrowing costs near zero.

Said Trump: “I’m not thrilled with his raising of interest rates, no. I’m not thrilled. I should be given some help by the Fed.”