By Steve Holland and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Friday he had a good meeting with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and got the impression Powell might be ready to lower interest rates.

“We had a very good meeting … I think we had a very good meeting on interest rates,” Trump told reporters.

Trump clashed with Powell during a rare presidential visit to the U.S. central bank on Thursday, and criticized the cost of renovating two historic buildings at its headquarters.

Trump, who called Powell a “numbskull” earlier this week for failing to heed the White House’s demand for a large reduction in borrowing costs, said he did not intend to fire Powell, as he has frequently suggested he would.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Nick Zieminski)