I sprinted through the rain to Publix and got there breathless, shirt stuck to my back. The run was the easy part. The hard part came at the register, when I handed the cashier the last cash in my wallet for one thin bag, and only after I put two items back on the belt. I wasn’t embarrassed. I carried the bag out to the truck. It weighed almost nothing, and that was the part that stayed with me.
That is who last Wednesday was really about. A new Federal Reserve Chairman and a new rate hike.
Donald Trump wanted a Federal Reserve chairman. What he expected was a subordinate. He did not get one.
The Federal Open Market Committee voted 12 to 0 to raise its benchmark rate by a quarter point, from a range of 3.5% to 3.75% up to 3.75% to 4%. It was the first increase since 2023. Kevin Warsh, the chairman Trump picked, voted with all eleven of his colleagues to approve it.
Then the president did what he does when reality refuses to salute. He went after the people carrying the bad news.
Trump demanded rates of “1%, or less,” called the committee hostile, and accused it of moving against him politically. He offered no serious case for why a supposedly booming economy needs borrowing costs you normally see in much weaker conditions. He offered grievance, volume, and an order: cut the rates, “AND FAST!”
That is not economic policy. It is a loyalty test with a percentage sign attached. Loyalty for me is when you “lock in,” complemented by trust, but when you “check out,” so do I, because my clock keeps ticking, and I keep time with those who stand with me.
Warsh stood at the lectern and described an economy with resilient spending, strong productivity, heavy business investment, and a labor market near full employment. Then he named the thing Trump keeps trying to shout out of the room. “Inflation is too high and has been for too long,” he said. The Fed’s own projections put headline PCE inflation at 3.7% for 2026, well above the 2% target. Again, this is what it means. Prices keep climbing because labor markets have changed, global connections have shrunk, and the lasting impact of expansionary fiscal moves is still pushing prices up, even as monetary policy tightens.
I studied basic economics as an undergraduate and am glad I did.
It cracks me up when MAGA pump fists in the air about America first and support the foreign isolation policy. It’s like they damage themselves and love it. Or the capitalists making money love their ignorance.
It is like trying to cool a boiling pot while the burner is still cranked to high. Wayne. I.
Think about how much help the Trump administration has given Saudi Arabia above what the country maintained previously, the unwanted war in Iran, manufactured expansionism in Venezuela and Argentina. America first, really?
That is the part Trump cannot bully out of the arithmetic.
A president can do a great deal by force. She or He can intimidate lawmakers. They can threaten trading partners. When a court obstructs the renovation he or she wants, he can purge officials, punish dissenters, and even threaten to bulldoze the Kennedy Center.
That last one is not a figure of speech. This month, the Trump administration said it might demolish the building if the court blocks his plans. People formed a human chain around it to stop him. If an institution will not bend, he threatens to break it.
But none of that moves a price tag. He cannot sign an executive order that drags four-dollar groceries back to three. He cannot post gasoline into submission. And he cannot make imported goods cheaper while using tariffs to raise the cost of bringing them in.
The Federal Reserve is not blameless. It is not sacred, and it should not be spared hard questions. Higher rates hurt people who did not create the inflation the Fed is trying to contain. They reach the family carrying a credit-card balance after an emergency, the worker whose car died before payday, the first-time buyer watching a house move farther out of reach.
Most credit-card rates are variable, and they track the prime rate within a few billing cycles. Auto loans and adjustable-rate mortgages get more expensive too. Fixed mortgage rates are a different animal. They follow longer-term Treasury yields more than the federal-funds rate, so they don’t move in lockstep, but persistent inflation pushes them up all the same.
So no, Wednesday’s decision is not painless.
But pain does not become illegitimate just because Trump finds it inconvenient. The real question is who created the conditions that made the hike necessary, and who is now being ordered to carry the blame.
People need to rewind to “easy money” when the Fed inserted an emergency fix for a horrible Trump handling of COVID, or, as some put it, his inaction. Around 2022, the Fed provided “easy money” out of necessity but maintained the emergency fix longer than it should have.
So, what happened? More cash flowing around led to demand outstripping supply, causing core inflation to break away from the Fed’s goal since money was circulating faster than the economy could keep up.
Inflation has more than one father. Global energy shocks matter. Wars matter. Private investment also plays a significant role. Supply chains, wages, consumer demand, and the Fed’s previous decisions all play a significant role. No honest argument pins every price increase on one man behind one desk.
But no honest argument erases presidential policy either. The Fed’s own report names the forces keeping prices hot: Trump’s tariffs, the energy shock from the war with Iran, and the artificial-intelligence (AI) build out. Fed officials raised their year-end inflation projection and do not expect inflation back to 2% until 2029.
But here is where I keep it real with you. It’s not just MAGA, but Trump and his capitalist comrades know that throwing percentages and formulas confuse many, if not most, workers, especially on the lower wage end.
Remember, Trump is not a friend of education. Now ask yourself again, why is that? Read my Economy Newsletter here.
None of this should surprise anyone, because he already told us. In May, a reporter asked whether voters’ worries about their own bills might push him toward a deal with Iran. His answer, reported by the Washington Post: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing.” The one thing was Iran’s nuclear program. “That’s the only thing that motivates me,” he said.
Not your rent. Not the balance on your card. Not the bag I carried out of Publix. He said it out loud, and most people let it slide.
A president is allowed to have priorities. He is not allowed to pretend the cost of them lands on somebody else.
Now the numbers he cannot bully are catching up with him. His approval has fallen to the low end of his second term, as low as 33% in some national polls. His own party sees the wave coming. Senator Rand Paul told Fox News the midterms could be “disastrous” for Republicans, and the strategists who count votes for a living are bracing for a bad November. So he flails. Trump goes after the Fed. He threatens a concert hall. He picks a fight with anyone paid to tell him the truth.
Trump wants you to believe those policies live in one universe and the Fed’s response lives in another. Tariffs are strength. War is resolved. Spending is an investment. Higher rates, though, are sabotage. That is why I included my sources so you can look them up too.
That trick only works if nobody keeps the ledger. Ignorance is his friend and knowledge is the enemy. Think carefully and vote in the 2026 midterms.
Sources
Fed rate decision, September 2026: rates rise to 3.75%-4% (CNBC).
Fed hikes in 12–0 vote, commits to inflation fight (Charles Schwab).
Fed review: the hike was expected, the message was more hawkish (Saxo).
Trump demands 1% or lower interest rate after first Fed hike under Warsh (Yahoo Finance).
Fed report cites stepped-up inflation from tariffs, Iran war, AI buildout (The Daily Record).
Senate confirms Kevin Warsh as next chair of the Federal Reserve (NPR).
Trump threatens to tear down the Kennedy Center; administration says it might demolish it if a court blocks renovations (NPR; NBC News).
Trump approval slips as low as 33% across major national polls; record low as Democrats extend House lead (Foreign Policy Journal; Focaldata).
Rand Paul says the 2026 midterms could be “disastrous” for the GOP (Yahoo News); GOP midterm prospects darken as Trump approval falls (Brookings).
Trump: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation” (Washington Post; corroborated by CBS, NBC, ABC, Time).