WSJ What’s News - Trump Visits Fed HQ, Putting Pressure on Powell

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

P.M. Edition for July 24. President Donald Trump took a rare step visiting the Federal Reserve. The $2.5-billion renovation to its headquarters has gotten renewed attention this month as Trump has ramped up pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. WSJ White House reporter Meridith McGraw discusses what this might mean for the Fed’s meeting next week. Plus, Walmart has built dozens of artificial intelligence agents to interface with everyone from customers to suppliers. Now the retailer is overhauling its approach; WSJ enterprise technology reporter Isabelle Bousquette explains why. And, for the first time, UnitedHealth Group has confirmed it’s responding to Justice Department probes. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump visits the Federal Reserve headquarters, ramping up pressure on Fed Chair Powell. We want to get the reach down, but we also want to get the Fed building finished. Plus, Walmart is streamlining its approach to artificial intelligence. Pretty much every company likes to use the phrase, we're all in on AI, but it's rarer to see a company that's actually following through on that. And UnitedHealth confirms that it's responding to probes from the Justice Department. It's Thursday, July 24th. I'm Alex Osoleff for The Wall Street Journal.

This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Today, President Trump visited the Federal Reserve. He joined a previously arranged tour for White House advisors of the construction site where the Fed is renovating its headquarters. The building project has become Trump's latest tool for chiseling away at the Fed for resisting White House pressure to cut interest rates aggressively. Trump has argued in recent weeks for lower interest rates to reduce government borrowing

costs. Speaking from inside the building under renovation in a white hard hat alongside Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Trump explained the purpose of his visit. Well, I'm here just really with the chairman. He's showing us around, showing us the work. And so I don't want to get that. I don't want to be personal. I just would like to see it get finished. And in many ways, it's too bad it started. But it did

start. And it's been under construction for a long time. It's going to be a real long time because it looks like it's got a long way to go. Also along for the visit was Republican Senator Tim Scott, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. In a letter yesterday, he asked Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for more detail on how the central bank's $2.5 billion headquarters renovation has been managed. Last week, Trump indicated that renovation might provide grounds to take the unprecedented and legally questionable step of firing Powell. The next day, Trump said he was unlikely to attempt to remove Powell, quote, unless he

has to leave for fraud. For more, I'm joined by WSJ White House reporter Meredith McGraw. Meredith, it is not very common for the president to visit the Fed. What kind of pressure does that put on Fed Chair Jerome Powell? Well, this is going to be very unusual and as you said, rare public pressure from the president and some of his closest advisors as they tore these Fed renovations. We've heard for months now, President Trump complain that the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, hasn't lowered interest rates, but this is the first time that he's going to actually show up at

Powell's office and not only complain about the increased cost of those renovations, but really ratchet up the pressure to lower interest rates. The Fed kicks off its next meeting next week. Does this have the potential to change the outcome of that meeting or the decision that's made there? We've seen time and time again, despite Trump's complaints, Powell has kept his head down and the Fed is expected to hold interest rates steady when it meets next week. That was WSJ White House reporter, Meredith McGraw. Thanks Meredith.

Thanks. Signs of trade talk progress lifted the S&P 500 to another record today. US stocks were mixed. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ closed at record highs after modest moves higher of less than 0.2%. The Dow fell 0.7% as component stocks IBM and United Health dropped. percent, as Component Stocks' IBM and UnitedHealth dropped. In business news, reporting after the bell, Intel detailed dramatic steps to revive its sagging fortunes, outlining layoffs of 15 percent of its workforce and scrapping plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on new chip facilities in Europe. The chipmaking giant said today that it would refocus its strategy on the highly competitive market for AI chips, regaining market share in personal computer processors and developing its advanced 14A technology to sell to large customers.

Intel, which has long dominated the business of making chips for laptops and desktop computers, fell far behind competitors like Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company after it failed to anticipate the surge in demand for the powerful chips fueling the artificial intelligence boom. The company said that revenue in the June quarter was roughly flat at $12.9 billion, beating Wall Street expectations. Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern say they are in advanced discussions about a potential merger, which would create the largest rail operator in the country.

The company said today that there were no guarantees that the discussions would result in any deal or about what the terms would be. The deal, if completed and approved, would create a sprawling rail network that spans the continent from coast to coast, something no single railroad operator's network currently does. Any deal would face serious scrutiny from a series of regulators. And United Health Group said today that it was responding to requests from civil and criminal investigators at the Justice Department. The disclosure follows a series of Wall Street

Journal articles in recent months detailing Justice Department investigations of the company. In a securities filing, UnitedHealth said it had contacted the Justice Department about the reports and that it has, quote, now begun complying with formal criminal and civil requests from the Justice Department. It added that it has full confidence in its practices and is committed to working cooperatively through the process. The disclosure, which didn't include the timing of the

Justice Department request to UnitedHealth, is the first time the company has publicly confirmed the investigations. The Journal most recently reported that the Justice Department's criminal health care fraud unit is investigating the health care conglomerate's Medicare billing practices, including how the company deployed doctors and nurses to gather diagnoses that bolstered its payments. UnitedHealth previously disputed the journal's articles on the Justice Department investigations, calling their reports misinformation and deeply irresponsible in statements

published on its website. Coming up, why, as many companies are trying to integrate AI, Walmart is streamlining it. That's after the break. INTRO While some companies are still figuring out what to do with artificial intelligence, Walmart doesn't have that problem. In fact, the retailer has created so many AI agents that things were starting to get a little confusing for users.

Now we're reporting that Walmart is consolidating those agents. Journal Enterprise Technology reporter, Isabel Bousquet joins me now. Isabel, what exactly is changing as far as Walmart is concerned? So Walmart has been building a lot of AI agents and AI agents refer to these AI tools that can take some type of action on behalf of a user.

So they're not just answering a question for you, they're going in and they're making that milk order or they're updating your payroll information. And Walmart has built a lot of them. And a company like Walmart is huge. They have a lot of different software systems, a lot of different apps. So essentially it's taking a step back and really looking to simplify that experience. So it's going to have four, what the company calls super agents. One is for customers.

One is for most of its employees. One is for sellers and suppliers of Walmart. And one is just for the engineering staff. They think that in doing that, they're also going to drive greater adoption. People are going to use it more because it's simpler to use. How about their top line goal around using AI? Walmart is really all in on AI. The CEO Doug McMillan has talked about this.

They see it as driving both bottom line savings and top line growth. You know, if there's an AI agent that is helping customers, for example, shop for a birthday party by recommending different plastic plates and cups that are on a certain theme. They think that's going to drive more sales. People are going to buy more. Internally, agents can also help with a lot of efficiencies. So, you know, the folks that are managing supply chain and warehouse operations, they

can use agents to basically do that more efficiently and save money there. As you said, Walmart is really all in on AI, and I'm curious how that compares to other companies and their embrace of AI. Pretty much every company likes to use the phrase, we're all in on AI, but it's rarer to see a company that's actually following through on that. Everyone is talking about agents. Agentic is definitely the tech buzzword of this year, but it's rare to see a company that even has one in deployment, let alone so many,

that they actually have to take a step back and consolidate the interfaces. So we're definitely seeing Walmart pulling ahead here. That was Wall Street Journal reporter Isabel Bousquet. Thanks Isabel. Thanks again. We're exclusively reporting that the Trump administration has greenlit Chevron to resume pumping oil in Venezuela.

That's according to people familiar with the move, who say the details of the agreement were still unclear, but it follows recent discussions involving President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and comes amid last week's prisoner swap that released all 10 remaining Americans who were detained by the Venezuelan government. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Under the agreement, no royalties or taxes would go to the Maduro regime, according to two people familiar with the terms, though details weren't yet clear. In March, the Trump administration revoked Chevron's Biden-era license to pump oil in Venezuela.

And the militaries of Thailand and Cambodia have exchanged heavy fire on their disputed border, killing several Thai civilians and injuring others in a significant escalation of long-running territorial tensions between the two Southeast Asian nations. Officials from both countries blamed the other for initiating the clashes, the heaviest along the jungle border since at least 2011. And that's what's news for this Thursday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienné with supervising producer Michael Cosmides. I'm Alex Osola for The Wall Street Journal.

We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.