President Trump renewed his threats to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell if he does not step down – adding that he has no intention of ending the government’s criminal investigation into him.

“I’ll have to fire him, okay, if he’s not leaving on time. I’ve held back firing him. I’ve wanted to fire him, but I hate to be controversial,” Trump told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” in an interview that aired Wednesday morning.

“I want to be uncontroversial. But he will be fired,” the president added.

Powell has vowed to stay on as “chairman pro tem” if his successor is not confirmed by May 15 – and though a Senate nomination hearing has been scheduled for next Tuesday, Trump’s pick, Kevin Warsh, is still facing a key roadblock.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) doubled down on his own threat to block any of Trump’s nominees from confirmation until the government drops its investigation into Powell.

“I am off on any vote for Warsh until this gets resolved,” Tillis told reporters Wednesday afternoon. 

“So next week at the committee hearing, I’m not going to spend time talking to Mr. Warsh. I’m fine with his credentials. I’m going to spend five minutes talking about the lunacy of this investigation,” he added.

Still, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has voiced confidence about Warsh’s prospects, saying at a White House briefing on Wednesday: “I am very ​optimistic that Kevin Warsh ​will ⁠be the Chair of the Fed on ⁠time.”

He added that Warsh is a “great candidate” and the GOP members of the voting committee “are aligned in that.”

For his part, Powell has said he plans to remain on the board at least until the Department of Justice’s investigation into him is over. The DOJ probe has focused on his June 2025 comments to the Senate about an over-budget project to renovate the Fed’s Washington, DC, headquarters, the whopping $2.5 billion price tag of which was first reported by The Post.

Even after his time as chair ends, Powell is eligible to serve as a Fed governor through 2028.

Trump said Wednesday he has no plans to scrap the criminal probe into Powell, whom he has repeatedly bashed as “stupid” and “hardheaded” for not slashing interest rates faster.

“Whether it’s incompetence, corruption or both, I think you have to find out. I really do. I think you have to find out,” Trump told Fox Business, referring to the investigation into Powell.

Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, has pledged to appeal a court decision earlier this month that blocked government subpoenas targeting Powell.

Prosecutors from her office showed up unannounced Tuesday at the construction site for the Fed’s headquarters renovation, though they were denied access, according to the Wall Street Journal.

After speaking with construction workers, two of Pirro’s staffers were told they could not access the site without preclearance and were given contact information to reach the Fed’s legal team, according to the report.

In a letter to Pirro’s office, Robert Hur, an outside lawyer for the Fed, nodded to the court rulings that rejected the legality of two subpoenas targeting Powell.

“Any construction project that has cost overruns of almost 80% over the original construction budget deserves some serious review. And these people are in charge of monetary policy in the United States?” Pirro told The Post in a statement.

The Senate nomination hearing for Warsh has been expected this week but got pushed back after his financial disclosures were made public Tuesday.

The paperwork revealed Warsh — who is married to Jane Lauder, an Estee Lauder heiress worth an estimated $1.9 billion — could become the wealthiest Fed chairman in history, with holdings in the range of $131 million to $209 million.

Tillis played down concerns about what would happen if Warsh is not confirmed by the scheduled May 15 end of Powell’s term.

“There’s no mayhem. There’s no effect on the [Federal Open Market Committee]. We will continue to move,” he told The Post.

“As a matter of fact, the mayhem would be if we sent to the financial markets that the Fed serves at the pleasure of the president of the United States, any president of the United States,” Tillis added. “It is an independent entity that needs to remain that way. And what I’m trying to do is be that stabilizing force.

“Because this is not in the president’s best interest,” he said in an apparent reference to Powell probe. “This could have damage.”

Warsh served as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011. Though he has told Trump he favors lower interest rates, the former board member pushed for higher rates during his term and is widely viewed as an inflation hawk.

While the president has aggressively pushed for lower rates, Bessent said Monday that the Fed is “doing the right thing by sitting and watching” how the Iran war plays out before adjusting policy.

Warsh’s financial disclosures included $10 million in income from his work at billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller’s family office and $3 million from his role at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank.

Warsh pledged to resign from those jobs and exit his board seats at UPS and Coupang, a South Korean retailer, if confirmed.

He also vowed to divest roughly 1,800 individual assets mentioned in the filings.