Reporters only cared about one thing Thursday while questioning Jerome Powell: Donald Trump.

The Fed delivered an as-expected 25bps rate cut following the November policy gathering, which played out in the very long shadow of a remarkable US election that found Donald Trump storming to a second term in the Oval Office.

Trump and his advisors make a point of criticizing Powell whenever possible, and some characters from the Trump orbit have all but demanded Powell’s resignation upon Trump (re)taking office in January. During his first term, Trump mercilessly (and publicly) derided the Powell Fed, going so far as to suggest the Committee was engaged in an effort to deliberately undermine the country’s interests.

Of course, it’s not just the threat (real or imagined) to the Fed’s (nominal) independence that makes the election outcome a hot topic among market participants and the journalists who serve them: There’s also the pressing question of whether, and to what extent, Trump’s economic agenda and policies pose an upside risk to inflation and/or threaten to further undermine America’s already shaky fiscal position.

Note that the term premium made it out to 28bps in the lead-up to the vote.

“I have said many times that… the federal government’s fiscal path is on an unsustainable path,” Powell mused, responding to a reporter who asked if he intended to be as vocal about America’s finances as Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker. “It is ultimately a threat to the economy. I’ve said it on many occasions. I just said it again.”

Powell did his absolute best to duck and dodge politics on Thursday afternoon. “There’s nothing to model right now. We don’t know what the policies are,” he said, of questions about how the Fed might incorporate the Trump agenda into its thinking. “It’ll be very much regular order when we do that,” he went on, in an ultimately futile attempt to suggest a Trump administration is just like any other.

As far as the term premium rebuild and the generalized backup in yields since the September FOMC meeting, Powell reminded markets that the Fed’s not concerned about short-term moves, but rather “material changes in financial conditions that last.” The implication: The last five or six weeks are noise until proven signal.

Asked why the Fed cut on Thursday given the demonstrable lack of data to support the move, and considering record highs on Wall Street, Powell said policy’s “still restrictive.” There’s very little evidence for that. I like Powell, really I do, but his insistence on that point — that policy’s restrictive, despite virtually every measure of financial conditions you care to consult suggesting precisely the opposite — is a bit vexing by now.

Do note: The figure shows a Fed gauge of financial conditions. Does it look restrictive to you?

Powell said the labor market’s “cooled a great deal,” is “continuing to cool” and emphasized (for the umpteenth time since Jackson Hole) that the Fed doesn’t “need further [labor market] cooling to achieve our inflation mandate.”

One reporter gently pointed out that core inflation’s been stuck for months, which is to say it’s not moving down anymore when measured on a 12-month basis. Powell cited three- and six-month measures, forgetting, apparently, all the times he explicitly downplayed those calculations as something the Fed should go by.

Although the Fed “expects there to be bumps,” the disinflation story is “very consistent” and “intact,” Powell said. Inflation’s coming down and it’ll settle back near target at some point over the next two or so years. At the same time, he said the economy’s doing very well. There’s “nothing in the data” which suggests the Fed needs to be in a hurry.

When reminded that “many Americans” still don’t feel good about the economy, Powell acknowledged Main Street’s “still feeling the effects of high prices.” “Inflation stays with you because the price gains aren’t coming back down,” he conceded. It’ll probably take several years of real wage gains to offset the bad vibes and recover lost purchasing power. “It’ll be some time before people regain their confidence,” he said.

Asked if he learned anything from the election about how Americans think about the economy, Powell was emphatic: “I’m not going to talk about anything that relates directly or indirectly to the election.”

He did answer one question about Trump, though, and he answered it quite “directly.” Asked if he’d resign if Trump demanded it, Powell said “No.”

Later, a reporter asked the same question, but extended it to include Powell’s colleagues. Could Trump, the reporter wondered, force Fed officials out and replace them unilaterally with his own acolytes. “Not permitted under the law,” Powell said. “What?” the reporter asked. Powell enunciated: “Not. Permitted. Under. The. Law.”