President Donald Trump criticized the possibility of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, but said in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that he wants Fed Chair Kevin Warsh “to do whatever he wants.”Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.“Kevin is fantastic, and I want him to do whatever he wants,” Trump told moderator Kristen Welker.“I don’t want to have a big influence on him.
But we had a great report.We’re doing great, and it’s unfair that whenever you do great, they want to raise interest rates.”The May jobs report indicated that the labor market was still resilient, adding 172,000 jobs while the unemployment rate remained consistent.
The report came amid heightened concerns over oil and gas prices, which have risen since the start of the Iran war.“Nowadays when you have good reports, the market goes down because they think they’re going to raise interest rates,” Trump said during the interview.“There’s no reason to raise interest rates.”Trump bashed the possibility of the Fed raising interest rates, arguing that higher rates would effectively punish the country.“There’s no reason to raise interest rates,” Trump said.
“The country becomes great.We built the country by doing great and having rates low.
What they do is when they raise interest rates, they try and kill success.I don’t want to kill success.
We should actually lower interest rates.”Trump repeatedly pressured the previous Fed chair, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates, deriding him as “too late” and “a major loser.”Powell had argued that a now-dropped investigation into the Federal Reserve was actually “a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.” The Justice Department had subpoenaed the Fed related to Powell’s Senate testi...