After employment statistics came in below expectations, including downward revisions for job creation in the previous year, and in light of increasingly stable inflation data, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced on August 23 that “the time has come” for interest rate cuts. Many economists had already been clamoring for the Fed to relieve pressure on the economy by lowering interest rates, with some citing an underwhelming July 2024 jobs report as evidence the Fed should have acted sooner.

The Fed is an independent agency and presidents traditionally do not interfere with its interest rate decisions. Trump broke with that tradition during his presidency as he appeared to sour on the independence of his own appointed chairman, Powell. As The Wall Street Journal reported, “beginning in the 1990s, presidents avoided publicly complaining about the Fed,” but as Trump’s “trade war unsettled markets, he steadily berated the Fed chair and called for lower rates.” The Journal also reported that “Biden has mostly avoided discussing Fed policy, reverting to pre-Trump tradition.” (Biden re-appointed Powell to run the nonpartisan central bank for a second term in late 2021.) Additionally, Forbes reported that according to former Trump Cabinet official Wilbur Ross’ upcoming memoir, in 2018, “Trump demanded his Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, call the chair of the Federal Reserve … and demand that he cut interest rates.”

The Journal explained that it’s not unusual for the Fed to change interest rates during election years; it has previously done so in 2004, 2012, and 2020. Yet right-wing media began projecting politicization onto the upcoming rate cuts following recent economic reports, joining Fox Business host and former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who as far back as January began trying to bully the Fed out of cutting rates prior to the election.

Earlier this year, Trump and his allies preemptively attempted to bully the Federal Reserve away from cutting interest rates prior to the presidential 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]
• Fox Business host 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 claimed that Biden’s prediction of lower interest rates meant, “The big guy wants a little juice from the Fed to get re-elected.” Kudlow then countered that “for all the cynical talk about how the Fed somehow must bend to the political whims of the president and his little minions, I actually think Powell is immune from that kind of thinking.” [Fox Business, Kudlow, 3/15/24]
• 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]
• Right-wing legal activist Paul Ingrassia wrote that “the Federal Reserve needs to raise interest rates now” to prove that it’s independent. Ingrassia added: “But unfortunately we’re in the midst of a presidential election cycle, so they won’t raise rates because it’s not politically advantageous for Kamala Harris.” [Twitter/X, 8/5/24]

Some conservatives fabricated a conspiracy theory that a routine revision of jobs reports was done specifically to push the Fed into cutting rates

• The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro pushed a conspiracy theory that the annual Bureau of Labor Statistics revision to jobs reports was deliberately timed “to jog the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates” in time for the election. Shapiro said: “You have to understand the game that's being played here. For the entirety of this year, the federal government has been radically overestimating the number of jobs created under the Biden administration so that he can go around bragging about jobs that he didn't create. OK, that revision is likely to be in the range of at least 600,000 jobs they say exist that do not exist in the Biden economy. Now why is that coming out right now? Because the goal is to jog the Federal Reserve to lower the interest rates and thus to blow more money into the economy, recapitulating inflation, and to do that off the basis of weak job growth. So that is the game. The game is: you hide the job failures until now. Then you let that news out of the bag just early enough that the Federal Reserve can lower the interest rate and then artificially boost spending in the economy.” (In fact, these revisions are scheduled at the same time every year as more accurate jobs data become available, and one previously showed a revision of -501,000 jobs in 2019 under Trump.) [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 8/21/24; Media Matters, 8/21/24]
• Shapiro also spread the conspiracy theory on X. On X, formerly known as Twitter, Shapiro wrote: “This is amazing for two reasons.1. They've been lying for a year about Biden job creation. 2. They're dumping this data just in time to justify a Federal Reserve interest rate decrease for the election.” [Twitter/X, 8/21/24]
• Right-wing commentator Bill Mitchell pushed a similar conspiracy theory: “WE GOT PLAYED” on the BLS jobs report revision; “That was just cover to let the Feds cut interest rates before the election.” [Twitter/X, 8/23/24]

Conservatives are increasingly accusing the Fed of cutting rates to help Democrats, or framing the cuts as political

• Fox host Sean Hannity: “Watch the Fed. Mark my words: September, they’re going to lower rates to help Kamala and Tim Walz.” [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show, 8/14/24]
• Shapiro: “They’re going to shove a Fed rate cut through as fast as humanly possible,” and “the idea that politics comes into their considerations not at all is ridiculous.” Shapiro added, “The notion of Federal Reserve independence is complete hogwash.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 8/15/24]
• Shapiro: “There is one sort of last hope for Joe Biden, and that is maybe Jerome Powell will save him” with interest rate cuts “just in time for the election, almost as if it’s on cue.” Shapiro continued: “It’s just so convenient. … We got to cut those interest rates just in time for the election and hopefully jog Joe Biden to victory. But don’t worry, it’s all apolitical.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 7/12/24]
• Right-wing X account End Wokeness posted: “If the Biden-Harris economy is so strong, why cut rates before the election? 🤔This announcement either means: 1. The economy is about to tank. 2. The federal reserve wants to artificially boost the economy before the election. 3. All of the above.” [Twitter/X, 8/23/24]
• Conservative Substack author amuse: “ELECTION INTERFERENCE? Powell confirmed the Fed would be cutting rates between 25bps to 50bps in September depending on the August payroll report.” [Twitter/X, 8/23/24]
• Gateway Pundit: “Fed Chair Announces Incoming Rate Cut… Just in Time to Boost Kamala Harris.” [The Gateway Pundit, 8/23/24]