President Donald Trump has put maximum pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, calling him every name in the book (and admitting he has purposefully called him names), accusing Powell of playing politics with rates, taking an extremely rare trip to the Fed to survey its $2.5 billion renovation, and taking action to undermine the independence of the Fed.

Powell, for his part, has remained stoic and unflinching in his support for the Fed’s actions and its independence. On Wednesday, facing tough questions from the press, Powell maintained his position despite Trump’s statements.

On the renovation: “I will say we had a nice visit with the president, it was an honor to host him. It’s not something that happens very often at the Federal Reserve to have the president come over, let alone to visit a building. But it was a good visit. … I was quite pleased to have the president say multiple times that what he really wanted to see was us getting this construction completed as soon as possible. That is our focus. And that’s what we are going to do.”

On the Fed’s independence: “I think that having an independent central bank has been an institutional arrangement that has served the public well. And as long as it serves the public well, it should continue and be respected. … Governments all over the advanced economy world have chosen to put a little bit of distance between direct political control of those decisions and the decision-makers. So, if you were not to have that, that would be a great temptation, of course, to use interest rates to affect elections, for example. And that’s something that we don’t want to do.”

On the cost of high rates to the government’s financing of its debt: “We have a mandate and that’s maximum employment and price stability. And it is not something we do to consider the cost to the government of our rate changes.”