Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said it is a “cheap shot” for people to say that the Fed is political, pushing back on critics of the central bank, a group that most prominently includes President Donald Trump.

Powell made the remarks on Tuesday during a question-and-answer session at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce. Powell emphasized the Fed’s independence from the political realm. He said that in Washington, things are often viewed through the lens of partisan politics, but that is not the case for the central bank.

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“We’re just not looking at things that way,” Powell said. “And no one — many people don’t believe us because they think, ‘Yeah, come on, oh, come on, you’re really political.’ But truth is, mostly people who are calling us political, it’s just a cheap shot.”

Powell said that the Fed does not engage in that.

“Our argument is doing our jobs,” he continued. “We don’t get into back and forth with external people. We just do our jobs. We keep our head down and do our jobs, that’s what we do.”

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Trump has accused the Fed of engaging in politics. Notably, he did so last year during election season, when the Fed conducted a half-percentage-point interest rate cut, which is double the size of the typical quarter-percentage-point revision.

“It really is a political move,” Trump said at the time. “Most people thought it was going to be half of that number, which probably would have been the right thing to do.”

Interest rate cuts can raise the stock market and spur economic investment, which can be good for the president in charge at the time.

Since entering office, Trump has repeatedly castigated Powell and the Fed for not lowering interest rates. He has branded Powell with the nickname “Too Late” for not cutting rates until the Fed’s last meeting this month, when the board voted to cut rates by a quarter percentage point.

The Fed’s independence has been in the spotlight in recent months.

Trump has moved to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook after she was accused of mortgage fraud. Cook successfully sued for a temporary restraining order blocking the move, and Trump has since filed a petition to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket to consider the case.

Administration officials have said Trump has cause to fire Cook because of the allegations of mortgage fraud, but critics say Trump sought to dismiss her simply so he could nominate someone to the board who shares his view that interest rates need to be cut.

Additionally, after Fed governor Adriana Kugler unexpectedly resigned, Trump nominated Stephen Miran, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, to replace her. Miran is set to serve the remainder of her term, which ends in January 2026. He opted to take an unpaid leave of absence from the White House instead of resigning, which drew criticism.

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Several features of the Federal Reserve System are meant to insulate it from politics. While the president nominates members of the Fed board and the Senate confirms them, governors serve 14-year staggered terms to prevent them from political turnover, and the chairman serves a four-year term that does not necessarily align with the bounds of presidential terms.

Additionally, the Fed is not reliant on Congress for appropriations and rather finances itself through its own operations.