“I think policy’s well-positioned,” Jerome Powell said Wednesday, while parrying incessant Trump-related questions after the Fed left rates on hold for the first time since July.

Predictably, a disproportionate share of the queries Powell fielded (or refused to field) revolved around Donald Trump’s policy proposals and specifically his sometimes petulant trade pronouncements.

Although Powell engaged where he could, he assiduously avoided anything that might be construed by The White House as criticism, or even as an attempt to pass judgment on the relative merits of tariffs or deportations.

To be fair to the media, the new statement didn’t exactly provide for much in the way of conversation fodder. The FT‘s Colby Smith asked why the Fed left out a reference to “progress” in the updated, qualitative assessment of the inflation trajectory, and just as I suggested in my own coverage, the omission was innocuous. “[We] did a little bit of language clean-up,” Powell said. “Just to shorten that sentence.”

Smith then asked about an uptick in survey-based measures of inflation expectations, which she noted have responded to the threat of tariffs. Powell dodged, reiterating that the Fed’s in wait-and-see mode on four key policy areas: Tariffs, immigration, fiscal policy and de-regulation. The Committee, he said, needs to hear specific policies articulated before they can draw any sort of conclusions.

Asked by Bloomberg’s Michael McKee if it’s fair to say that given the number of policy unknowns, the Fed doesn’t have a medium- to long-term economic forecast they can be confident in, Powell said forecasts are always indeterminate by their very nature.

He did concede that the current situation admits of “some additional uncertainty,” but that should pass he told McKee. “Then we’ll be back to the regular uncertainty.”

When reminded he once extolled the virtues of institutional DEI initiatives, Powell was adamant that he still believes in DEI, but said the Fed will comply with executive orders “consistent with applicable laws.”

Asked what assurances he can offer the public regarding Fed independence “under this administration,” Powell braved an ostensibly emphatic, but ultimately unsatisfying, rejoinder. “This is who we are, it’s what we do,” he said. “Don’t look for us to do anything else.”

Ultimately, Wednesday’s press conference was as uneventful as the rates decision that preceded it. The Fed, Powell went on, “want[s] to see further progress on inflation.” “The story’s there,” he told the room. “We seem to be set up for further progress, but seeming to be set up for it and seeing it” are two different things.