President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he wants Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates, arguing that doing so would ease the financial burden created by the national debt—debt he says skyrocketed as a result of Joe Biden’s spending policies.
Taking a jab at his own former Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, who had recommended Powell for the top Fed job, Trump joked that he himself could do a better job leading the central bank. “Maybe I should go to the Fed. Am I allowed to appoint myself?” Trump said during a ceremony at the White House. “I’d do a much better job.”
At the time of his comments, Powell was expected to announce that the Fed would not be cutting interest rates that day. Trump dismissed the possibility, saying, “Powell’s too late.”
Trump didn’t hold back in his criticism of the Fed chairman, blasting him as ineffective and suggesting his delay in lowering rates has been costly for the country. “I know what I’m doing. So we have a stupid person, frankly, at the Fed. He probably won’t cut today. Europe had 10 cuts and we had none.”
He added, “And I guess he’s a political guy, I don’t know. He’s a political guy who’s not a smart person, but he’s costing the country a fortune.”
Trump also hinted at future changes, noting Powell’s term is nearing its end. “So what I’m going to do is, you know, he gets out in about nine months. He has to. He gets, fortunately, terminated.”
Reflecting on how Powell ended up in the role, Trump admitted he regretted following Mnuchin’s advice. “I would have never reappointed him,” Trump said. “Biden reappointed him. I don’t know why that is, but I guess maybe he was a Democrat.”
Sarcastically, Trump remarked, “You know, I got great advice from Mnuchin on this one — great advice — but he’s done a poor job.”
Trump insisted there is no justification for keeping rates high, asserting that inflation—rampant under Biden—has now been curbed under his leadership. “So we have no inflation,” Trump said. “We have only success. And I’d like to see interest rates get down now.”
He claimed that slashing interest rates could drastically reduce the government’s interest payments, potentially saving hundreds of billions. “It would be nice to be 2½ points lower: We’d be saving $800 billion, $700 billion,” Trump said. “That’s a lot of money, think of it, for nothing — for absolutely nothing.”
He continued, “We’d save $6- $7, $800 billion. We have, I think we’re 38th now in interest. And we should be No. 1. We should be the lowest.”
Arguing that the Fed can always reverse course later if inflation reemerges, Trump said there was little risk to cutting rates now. “If he’s worried about inflation, that’s OK, I understand that,” Trump said. “I don’t think there’s going to be any — so far there hasn’t — I mean we have almost no inflation.”
Taking credit for improvements, Trump said inflation began dropping once he was elected. “We’ve done a great job. We had when I came in we had a lot of inflation. We went through four years of the highest inflation in the history of our country with Sleepy Joe Biden. And Sleepy Joe, he didn’t know what the hell he was doing.”
He went on, “And so we had the highest inflation we’ve ever had in the history of our country. And then it came down because when I got elected, it started dropping because people understood that knew what I was doing.”
Returning to Powell, Trump faulted him for failing to respond to the improving economic picture. “But now we have a man that just refuses to lower the fed rate, just refuses to do it. And he’s not a smart person.”
Trump joked that Powell’s resistance to his calls for rate cuts might be personal. “I do a much better job than these people,” Trump said. “I don’t even think he’s that political: I think he hates me, but that’s OK. You know, he should. He should. I call him every name in the book, trying to get him to do something.”
Despite trying both friendly and combative approaches, Trump said nothing has worked. “I’ve been so nice to him, fellas, you wouldn’t believe: ‘Let’s have dinner, Too Late’ — I’d call him, Too Late; ‘come on, Too Late, let’s have dinner,’” Trump joked. “I do it every way in the book.”
He added, “I’m nasty, I’m nice. Nothing works. He’s like just a stupid person.”
Trump argued that Powell’s actions have put the U.S. at a disadvantage compared to Europe. “We’re paying more interest than a lot of European nations that can’t carry our suitcase,” he said.
Looking ahead, Trump said he plans to appoint a temporary replacement after Powell’s term expires, allowing him to quickly move on interest rate cuts before naming a long-term successor. “Very sad to see it, and what I’m going to do is I’m going to go very short term, like six months, seven months, eight months — wait till this guy gets out, get the rates way down and then go long term, because we have a tremendous appetite for our debt because our country is doing well,” Trump concluded.
{Matzav.com}