The Federal Reserve defies Trump’s stupid demands
President Donald Trump is likely fuming in his office adorned by gilded Home Depot ornamentals after the Federal Reserve Board unanimously voted to raise interest rates Wednesday.
For months, Trump tried to fire former Fed Chair Jerome Powell—even corruptly trying to push him out by threatening criminal charges if he didn’t step aside—because he refused to lower interest rates at Trump’s demand.
Once Powell’s term expired in May, Trump nominated Kevin Warsh, a GOP toady who Trump thought would lower interest rates to his heart’s content.
But on Wednesday, every single member of the Fed board—including Warsh—voted to raise interest rates in an effort to combat the inflation created by Trump’s own policies.
You can tell that Warsh was anxious about that decision, as he clearly tried to lessen the blow in his speech explaining the board’s move.
“The economy has strengthened. It’s a judgement I have and the committee has,” Warsh said during a news conference.
But then he added, “The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long.”
Ouch.
That’s exactly the kind of comment that Trump and the GOP don’t want to hear ahead of the midterms, which are slipping away as voters revolt against the skyrocketing gas prices and cost of living.
As of the time of this writing, Trump has yet to comment on the Fed’s move.
However, Trump did recently threaten to suspend trade with countries with whom the United States has a deficit unless the bank lowered rates.
Related | Trump can’t bluster his way out of his calamities
“LOWER THE RATE OR I’LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT, which the U.S. Supreme Court, in its ridiculous and very costly Tariff decision, strongly acknowledged ‘the President’ has an absolute right to do,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after reports signaled that the Fed was likely to raise rates at its next meeting.
“IT’S BETTER THAN TARIFFS! The Fed Board, with its great new leader, must get smart – BE PATRIOTS for a change. High interest rates put the U.S.A. at a very unfair disadvantage, and I won’t allow that to happen!” he concluded.
Of course, suspending trade with our biggest trade partners would literally crash the U.S. economy, so many assumed that this threat—like most of the ones Trump makes—was empty.
And that assumption was right, as Trump didn’t follow through after Wednesday’s Fed meeting. Instead, he whined about it.
“Interest Rates in the United States should be 1%, or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World — BY FAR. Our Country is BOOMING with new Investment! If we stopped Trading with every country that we have a Deficit with, which is most of them, we would make, at least, 1.5 Trillion Dollars a year,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He then proceeded to brag about the United States carrying the rest of the world’s economies.
“The word ‘Deficit’ is nothing more than a fancy word for LOSS. We are ‘carrying’ almost every country in the World, and that cannot go on any longer. LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!” he wrote.
Warsh, meanwhile, declined to comment on the apparent extortion attempt, in which Trump threatened to quite literally decimate the economy unless the Fed gave him what he wanted.
“Part of the independence of the Federal Reserve is we stay in our lane. Independence is a two-way street,” Warsh said. “We’ll let people that do trade policy and fiscal policy stay in their lane too.”
Ultimately, the fact Americans that have to legitimately worry about Trump nuking the economy in order to get his way is why the GOP is going to lose bigly in the midterms.
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