On June 18, 2025, standing in front of hard-hatted workers hired to erect two giant flag poles in the newly paved over White House rose garden, Donald Trump went on a rant about Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell—who he appointed during his first term of office.
Given Trump's economic chaos since taking office, Powell and the Federal Reserve board have declined to lower interest rates, foreseeing inflation ahead and a possible recession. Trump, of course, wants interest rates lowered.
The footage is here, but I have transcribed what Trump said in all its incoherent glory:
We're doing well as a country if the Fed would ever lower rates. You could buy debt for a lot less. It's a shame, this guy... I have a guy... You ever have a guy that's a smart person and you have to deal with him? He's not a smart guy. He's worried about inflation. I said, That's right, if there's inflation in six months or nine months, you lower the rates! You raise the rates! You can do whatever you want, Brian, right? [voice in background, Right!] So let's say there's rrrrampant inflation, which there's none. You know what there is, there's success. I got a call from Congress last night, Sir, there's a problem. What is it? Money is pouring in, we don't know how to account for it. I said, Check the tariffs. $88 billion came in from tariffs. No inflation. And it's going to get even more so. I know what I'm doing.
So we have a stupid person, frankly, at the Fed. He probably won't... Europe had 10 cuts and we've had none. And I guess he's a political guy, I guess, he's a political guy who's not a smart person. But he's costing the country a fortune. So what I'm gonna do is ... he gets out in about 9 months, he — fortunately he's terminated [sic] — Biden — I would have never reappointed him, Biden reappointed him, I don't know why that is, I guess maybe he's a Democrat, we got great advice from Mnuchin on this one. Great advice. But, uh, he's done a poor job. So we have no inflation, we have only success and I'd like to see interest rates get down.
Now, Biden did a lot of very short-term debt, so we have short-term debt coming due, and because of this guy's rates, you know if he'd lower it a point, I'd pay about about a point less. And if he'd lower it two points, I'd pay about two points less. And that's for 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, 5 years. It's hundreds of billions, it's even trillions of dollars that we're going to lose because of this... I call him Too Late Powell because he's too late. I mean, if you look at him... every time I did this, I was right a hundred percent, he was wrong.
Maybe I should go to the Fed, do you think? Am I allowed to appoint myself, Doug? Am I allowed to appoint myself to the Fed? I'd do a much better job than these people.
So anyway, we should be two points lower, it would be nice to be two and a half points lower. We'd be saving $800 billion, $700 billion — that's a lot of money, right there [looking around at the flag pole workers] — for nothing, for absolutely nothing — we'd save six, seven, eight hundred billion dollars. We — I think we're 38th now in interest and we should be number 1. We should be the lowest.
By the way, if he's worried about inflation, that's okay, I understand that, I don't think there's going to be any, so far there hasn't. I mean we have almost no inflation, we've done a great job. When I came in, we had a lot of inflation. We went through four years of the highest inflation in the history of our country with sleepy Joe Biden. Sleepy Joe. And, uh, he didn't know what the hell he was doing. And so we had the highest inflation we've ever had, in the history of our country. And then it came down because when I got elected it started dropping because people understood that I knew what I was doing.
But now we have a man that just refuses to lower the Fed rate. Just refuses to do it. And he's not a smart person. I don't even think he's that political. He hates me, but that's okay. He should, he should — I call him every name in the book, trying to get him to do something. I've been nice to him, I do it all ways, I know how to sell. I've been so nice to him, fellas, you wouldn't — let's have dinner! Too Late, I call him Too Late. Come on, Too Late, let's have dinner. I do it every way in the book. I'm nasty, I'm nice. Nothing works. He's just a stupid person.
Wow... so many lies and stupidities.
I am not anything close to an economist, but I was alive for the past 60 years so I know the inflation of the Biden years was nowhere near a record for the U.S. Here's a chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on U.S. inflation just since the 1970s, which doesn't include the Great Depression or any of the other recessions of our earlier history:
Only off by close to 100% on those figures alone, Trump. And to say we have "no inflation" now is also not particularly accurate, either, compared to the pre-covid decade or so.
The $88 billion in tariffs he describes (though I doubt "Congress" called him) are costs that will be passed along to all of us by the companies that had to pay them. And that's what will result in...inflation.
However! None of that is why I spent way too long transcribing his incoherent babbling. My main reason was to get to the last paragraph, where Trump describes his supposed method for getting Powell to do his bidding.
What he describes is textbook abuser behavior: by his own admission, he's nice to Powell, then he's abusive, calling him names in private (we can imagine) and in public. "I'm nasty, I'm nice." Therefore, Powell is a "stupid person" for not responding to the abuse.
It's such a clear expression of Trump's MO in relationships, running his businesses, and now running the country. Obviously, Jerome Powell isn't having it, and good for him.
We're all being held hostage by an abuser.
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