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President Donald Trump said Wednesday he still has confidence in Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, but also said he wants the central bank to slash interest rates to 1% "or less." Trump's comments came hours after the central bank announced its first rate hike since 2023. Warsh, who was nominated by Trump as Fed chair, had defended Wednesday's widely expected rate increase of 25 basis points as appropriate. The decision by the 12-member Federal Open Market Committee to raise benchmark interest rates to a target range of 3.75% to 4% was unanimous. "I do," Trump told reporters when asked after arriving on a campaign trip to North Carolina if he still had confidence in Warsh. "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 other people," Trump said. "And I told, I talked to Kevin, and I said, 'You might as well vote with the board. It's not going to matter.'" Trump's remarks may undercut his and Warsh's promises that the Fed has independence from the White House. "The board is very hostile. They're very political. They're doing the wrong thing," Trump said. "They're raising the rates to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly can do," the president said before heading to a campaign event for Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley. But asked if he believed Warsh made a decision based on what Trump told him, the president replied, "No, I don't think so." "I want him to be independent, he said. Earlier Wednesday and after the Fed's rate decision, Trump, in a Truth Social post, demanded the Fed lower interest rates. "We are 'carrying' almost every country in the World, and that cannot go on any longer," Trump wrote. "LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!" he wrote. The FOMC, in a statement after the rate hike, said, "Inflation remains elevated." Updated projections released Wednesday show a strong majority of Fed officials expect another rate increase could be on the way. But Trump, who has relentlessly pressured the Fed to drastically lower borrowing costs, insisted in his Truth post that rates in the U.S. "should be 1%, or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World — BY FAR." "Our Country is BOOMING with new Investment!" wrote Trump, who has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. has raked in as much as $20 trillion or more during his second term. Fact-checkers say Trump's figures are false, and the White House on Sept. 9 said, "President Trump has secured more than $11 trillion in new U.S. investment." "If we stopped Trading with every country that we have a Deficit with, which is most of them, we would make, at least, 1.5 Trillion Dollars a year," Trump claimed in Wednesday's post. Less than two weeks earlier, Trump threatened that if the Fed doesn't cut rates, he will cut off trade with countries that have trade surpluses with the U.S. That group includes most of the U.S.'s top trading partners, along with dozens of other countries. That extreme threat poured gasoline on Trump's years-long pressure campaign against the Fed, which had temporarily subsided after Warsh succeeded Jerome Powell as chairman. So far, however, Trump and his aides have refrained from attacking Warsh directly. White House spokesman Kush Desai told Fox News earlier Wednesday afternoon that Trump "absolutely" still believes in the independence of the Fed. "But that doesn't change the fact that the president of the United States has a First Amendment right" to speak out "when things go awry," Desai added.
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