President Trump on Wednesday slammed the Federal Reserve after a 12-0 vote to raise interest rates for the first time since 2023. 

The Gateway Pundit reported that the Fed raised interest rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday, just seven weeks before the midterm elections. Trump initially responded by calling on the Fed to lower rates on Truth Social.

While speaking to reporters at Charlotte airport on Wednesday, Trump blasted the “very hostile” and “very political” Board of Governors for keeping rates high and preventing the US from paying down debt, which Trump says “we could do with a swipe of a pen with every country.”

Asked if he still has confidence in Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Chairman, Trump responded, “I do,” adding, “I mean, I’m relying on Kevin, but he’s got, you know, a very tough board. He’s got a board that was put there by a lot of other people.”

The interest rates are too high,” Trump said, describing them as “not appropriate.” Trump added, “I talked to Kevin, and I said you might as well vote with the board because it’s not going to matter.”

“The board is very hostile. They’re very political. They’re doing the wrong thing. They’re a bunch of politicians or people put on by politicians, and it’s a shame because it’s too high an interest rate. Despite that, the country barrels through everything because we’re doing so well, but the interest rates are too high. We should be paying the lowest interest rates anywhere in the world because we have the strongest credit,” he said. “If we wanted to get rid of deficits, which we could do with a swipe of a pen with every country, we’d make a trillion and a half dollars a year. We’d pay off our debt. We’d do all sorts of things, but we haven’t chosen to do that. But at some point, we will.”

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Trump was later asked about Warsh’s comments during his Wednesday press conference where he announced the rate hike and described the decision as a “sober decision, serious decision, responsible decision, one that we have been preparing for and thinking about in my 110 or 20 days here.”

“Well, I don’t know what he was referring to, but I would tell you interest rates are too high,” Trump said.

The President further defended Warsh but lashed out at the Fed Board again, saying, “They’re raising the rates to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly do.”

“The problem they have is that we have the greatest economy in history. We have over 21 trillion dollars being invested in this country, which is five times more than we’ve ever had before. So, they’re raising that only for political reasons, and that’s a raise against Trump,” he continued.

Trump went on to slam the decision again, calling for 1% interest rates while delivering remarks in Gastonia, North Carolina.

“Interest rates in the United States should be 1% or less because we are the best credit in the world, by far, with all that money pouring in. Our country is booming with new investment more than anybody else ever, and if we stop trading with every country that we have a deficit with, which is most of them, and which would be very easy to do, we’d make at least 1.5 trillion dollars a year,” he said.

“Lower the interest rates for the United States of America and fast because we can grow at a level that nobody’s ever grown before,” Trump added after slamming Mexico, Canada, and the European Union over the ongoing trade deficits.

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