Politics
Trump Posts His Preferred Interest Rate on Truth Social at an Unspecified Hour
By Mor Michael, . BSN Network. Satire.
President Donald Trump took to Truth Social this week to inform the Federal Reserve that it had made a mistake, that the mistake was a quarter-point rate hike, and that the correct interest rate for the United States of America is 1%, or lower, which he arrived at through a process he did not describe.
The Fed, for context, raised rates because inflation data suggested it should. Trump posted on Truth Social because he felt it shouldn't. These are the two institutions now in dialogue about the cost of borrowing money in the largest economy on earth.
Chris Phelan, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, appeared on Bloomberg's Balance of Power to provide intellectual scaffolding for the president's Truth Social position. He explained that inflation is coming down, no matter how you measure it, which is a sentence that means the opposite of what it sounds like it means. "No matter how you measure it" is not a phrase economists use when the measurements agree with each other.
Phelan was calm, articulate, and completely unbothered by the fact that the Federal Reserve, which measures this for a living, had just looked at the same inflation data and concluded that raising rates was the correct response. He described their conclusion as "unfortunate," which is the word the White House uses when a number doesn't cooperate.
"The president has been very clear," Phelan said, "that he believes rates should reflect the economic reality we're living in." He did not specify which economic reality, or whose, or whether it was the same one the Bureau of Labor Statistics has access to.
Trump's position, stated plainly, is that interest rates should be at 1% or below. For reference, 1% is the rate the Fed set during the early months of the pandemic, when the economy had stopped. The economy has not stopped. It is, by most measures, overheating. Trump's proposed cure for an overheating economy is the same rate the government deployed when the economy was in a coma, which is the kind of thinking that gets a guy a second term.
The Fed, under Jerome Powell, raised rates to between 4.25% and 4.5% in its most recent decision. Trump has publicly stated that Powell should be fired, that the Fed is wrong, and that he personally knows what rates should be, which is 1%, or possibly less than 1%, the flexibility on the downside being the most alarming part of the post.
Sources close to the situation noted that the Truth Social post went up without input from the Treasury Department, the Council of Economic Advisers prior to Phelan's subsequent endorsement, or anyone with a background in monetary economics, though Phelan has now enthusiastically retroactively endorsed it, which is its own kind of credential.
The Federal Reserve has not responded on Truth Social. It is not on Truth Social. This has not resolved the dispute.
Phelan, asked whether there was any scenario in which the Fed's decision might have been correct, said that he remained confident in the direction of travel. The direction of travel, in this case, is toward 1%.
The Dow closed mixed.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-09-16/trump-calls-fed-rate-hike-unfortunate-demands-a-cut-video