Immediately following the publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs report for June, which came in better than expected, Trump ally and Fox Business star Maria Bartiromo doubled down on Fox’s pressure campaign against Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell as both she and her guests urged the Fed to cut interest rates in ways that experts believe are unwarranted. This further advanced the MAGA effort to bully the Fed into adopting President Donald Trump’s preferred policies, which kicked into a higher gear yesterday after Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the long-time Fed chairman — a lifelong Republican whom Trump himself appointed to lead the Federal Reserve — should “resign immediately.”
Bartiromo bemoaned Powell’s supposed reluctance to cut rates given the uncertainty over the looming expiration of the pause on Trump’s massive tariffs, while economic analyst and guest Stephanie Pomboy suggested Powell should stop “push[ing] back on the president” and start to cut rates. Fox Business anchor Cheryl Casone joined in on the pressure, suggesting that Powell may cut rates “too late.”
Another of Bartiromo’s guests, financial executive Mark Tepper, said he was hoping the BLS’ jobs report for June would be worse in order to force rate cuts.
“One of the things I was potentially looking for was for the number to possibly come in below 80,000, and then that could have forced Powell's hand to actually cut rates in July as opposed to maybe toward the back half of the year.” Tepper concluded, “I believe that Jay Powell should begin cutting sooner rather than later.”
Yet financial news sites and economists say that the better-than-expected jobs report shows there is no need to cut interest rates at present. Harvard University economics professor Jason Furman wrote, “This obliterates the case for a Fed rate cut in July. The labor market is doing fine, especially given breakeven job growth is currently in the 50-100K range.” Ernie Tedeschi, the director of economics for The Budget Lab at Yale, posted: “Good outcome for American workers, bad outcome if you want the Fed to cut more.” Yahoo Finance reporter Jordan Weissmann posted, “Fine jobs report that doesn’t really give the Fed any reason to cut faster.” A Bloomberg live blog on the jobs report declared: “US Jobs Report Slams the Door on a Fed July Rate Cut.” And a MarketWatch article’s headline stated: “The June jobs report showed a bigger-than-expected increase in employment. The Fed’s rate cuts are on hold for now.”
