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Fox ramps up Trump’s pressure campaign against the Federal Reserve

Experts warn Trump’s policies may yet send inflation soaring

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published

Following a better-than-expected consumer price index report from May, which showed prices increasing by 0.1% last month for an annualized rate of 2.4%, President Donald Trump is redoubling his pressure campaign to get Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome (“Jay”) Powell to cut interest rates. Fox News and Fox Business hosts and guests joined in pressuring Powell to cut interest rates, with former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow further suggesting replacement of the entire Fed board of governors and their staff economists.

Yet multiple economists have warned that Trump’s tariffs have not yet taken full effect, and the Trump administration is still in the early stages of its mass deportation campaign, both of which could reignite inflation.

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  • After a better-than-expected May CPI report, the Trump administration has demanded Federal Reserve cut interest rates

    • The May headline inflation report was lower than expected. CNBC reported that “consumer prices rose less than expected in May as President Donald Trump’s tariffs had yet to show significant impact on inflation.” [CNBC, 6/11/25]
    • President Trump posted: “CPI JUST OUT. GREAT NUMBERS! FED SHOULD LOWER ONE FULL POINT. WOULD PAY MUCH LESS INTEREST ON DEBT COMING DUE. SO IMPORTANT!!!” [Truth Social, 6/11/25]
    • Vice President JD Vance followed suit, writing: “The president has been saying this for a while, but it's even more clear: the refusal by the Fed to cut rates is monetary malpractice.” [Twitter/X, 6/11/25]
    • CNBC: Trump “regularly badgers Powell to lower rates.” [CNBC, 6/6/25]

  • Fox joined Trump’s pressure campaign against the Fed

    • Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo: Trump is “right” in his demand that the Fed cut interest rates by a full percentage point. Bartiromo promoted Trump and Vance’s demands on the Fed, saying: “The president writes, ‘CPI just out. Great numbers! Fed should lower one full point. Would pay much less interest on debt coming due. So important!!!’ And he's right. I mean, that's the issue here. JD Vance says, ‘The president has been saying this for a while, but it's even more clear: the refusal by the fed to cut rates is monetary malpractice.’” [Fox Business, Mornings with Maria, 6/12/25]
    • Fox host Laura Ingraham invited Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to attack Powell: “Shouldn't the interest rates be edging downward at this point?” Lutnick responded: “It's unbelievable that, you know, Jerome Powell is just sitting around waiting. You know, the president calls him ‘too late.’ He’s just ‘Too Late Powell.’ I mean why, why hasn't he cut? I mean, you remember, if he cut interest rates 1% — Europe cutting like crazy — you realize that saves America $300 billion a year? It's unbelievable how much we would save if he did his job and he cut interest rates. The economy is ready for it. It's easy, inflation is low. Come on, he’s got to do his job soon.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 6/11/25]
    • Fox Business host Larry Kudlow: “President Trump is hinting at putting in a new Fed chairman. I mean, this guy Jay Powell should have been cutting rates with the absence of inflation.” Kudlow then proposed that his guest, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), be the new Fed chairman. [Fox News, Kudlow, 6/11/25]
    • Kudlow went even further, suggesting Trump should “repopulate the board. … You must also repopulate the reserve bank presidents. … Then you have to dig into the board’s staff of economists.” [Fox Business, The Big Money Show, 6/11/25]
    • Fox Business guest: Powell is “trying to sabotage the president and his agenda.” MAGA investment firm CEO James Fishback added: “I don’t know if the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is misinformed, uninformed, or chloroformed.” He also said that “President Trump once again is absolutely right” that Powell should cut interest rates. [Fox Business, Making Money, 6/11/25; The Hill, 2/20/25]
    • Fox Business host Stuart Varney to White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran: “Is the president going to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower rates because of that lower inflation number?” After Miran deflected, Varney asked again: “Will the president again pressure Jay Powell and say, ’You've got to get rates down?’” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 6/11/25]

  • Trump and his Fox allies repeatedly pressured the Fed not to cut interest rates prior to Trump’s election

    • Trump and his allies warned the Fed against cutting interest rates prior to the election. The Wall Street Journal reported that in a June Bloomberg Businessweek interview, Trump said cutting interest rates before the election is something that Fed officials “know they shouldn’t be doing.” The story also quoted Michael Faulkender, chief economist at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, who “said starting a rate-reduction campaign before the election would tarnish the Fed’s credibility.” [The Wall Street Journal, 7/31/24]
    • Larry Kudlow said the only reason for Powell to cut interest rates would be if the Fed “wants to completely politicize monetary policy, and slash interest rates in order to juice the economy and re-elect Biden.” Instead, Kudlow suggested that Powell “is an honorable man” who would not seek another term as Fed Chair regardless of the election result, and instead “establish his historical reputation” for getting inflation back to the target level. [Fox Business, Kudlow, 1/17/24]
    • Kudlow said the Fed would “just be creamed, reamed, destroyed,” and that Trump and Republicans would “correctly go after” it if there is an interest rate cut — unless it happened after the election. “Well, they could cut two times after the election, OK,” Kudlow said with a laugh. [Fox News, America Reports, 4/5/24]
    • Kudlow later imagined that Biden would be the one to attack the Fed for not cutting rates. During a panel discussion on his Fox Business show, Kudlow said: “Joe Biden forecasted rate cuts. He did it at least twice, maybe three times. He’s going to be very disappointed. Do you think he’ll attack the Fed?” [Fox Business, Kudlow, 5/1/4]
    • Kudlow declared, “The Fed can’t cut interest rates, because if they do, it’ll be so political.” [Fox Business, The Big Money Show, 5/15/24]

  • Experts point out that Trump policies expected to send inflation soaring are not yet in full effect

    • Several economists have predicted that Trump’s tariff and mass deportation agenda would send inflation soaring. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Maurice Obstfeld also specifically warned that Trump’s interference with the independence of the Fed risks higher inflation. [Media Matters, 6/18/24]
    • Harvard University economist Jason Furman: “Tariffs were still not fully in effect in May and some price passthrough takes time.” Furman noted that the tariffs “did add to some goods.” [Twitter/X, 6/11/25]
    • Yale Budget Lab director of economics Ernie Tedeschi: “Tariffs aren't like COVID where the effects are overnight. They take time to soak into the data.” [Twitter/X, 6/11/25]
    • University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers: “The CPI is yet to show the effects of tariffs” and “the tariffs aren’t really in yet.” [Twitter/X, 6/11/25, 6/11/25]
    • The Trump administration is still ramping up his mass deportation agenda. The New York Times reported that “demands from the White House for a drastic increase in arrests of people who have entered the country illegally have pushed immigration officials into overdrive to fulfill President Trump’s pledge of mass deportations.” On Truth Social, Trump admitted that his mass deportation operation is harming businesses and farmers. [The New York Times, 6/11/25; Truth Social, 6/12/25]