Trump: We Built This Country With Low Interest Rates–“Success Can Kill Inflation, Just Like Higher Interest Rates”
President Trump, during an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” made a case for the Federal Reserve not to raise interest rates:
KRISTEN WELKER: Are gas prices going higher or have they peaked? PRES. DONALD TRUMP: They’re going to come low, very low. They’re going to go lower than they were before. KRISTEN WELKER: Have they peaked? PRES. DONALD TRUMP: As soon – Well, it depends. I mean, it depends where the war goes. It could be, I’ll have to give them a shot, and it could be we’ll sign an agreement. If we sign an agreement, it’ll go down now. Otherwise, it’ll go down after we’re finished. KRISTEN WELKER: You have a new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. KRISTEN WELKER: His first meeting in the role is later this month. After this month’s jobs report, economists now say it’s possible the Fed may have to raise rates. Do you think that’s possible? And what would your reaction be, sir? PRES. DONALD TRUMP: So, I’m of a different feeling. I think Kevin is – Kevin is fantastic, and I want him to do whatever he wants. I don’t want to have a big influence on him. But we had a great report. We’re doing great, and it’s unfair that whenever you do great, they want to raise interest rates. It should be the opposite way. You know, if you go back 15 or 20 years, when you had good reports, the market went up. Nowadays when you have good reports, the market goes down because they think they’re going to raise interest rates. There’s no reason to raise interest rates. The country becomes great. We built the country by doing great and having rates low. What they do is when they raise interest rates, they try and kill success. I don’t want to kill success. We should actually lower interest rates. Now, if inflation comes, and, you know, people live with inflation, but if inflation comes what happens is you stamp it out. But success can kill inflation just like higher interest rates. What they do now is, like, we had great job numbers. You agree, right? KRISTEN WELKER: They beat expectations. PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Not expectations. Like, three times, okay. But you ready? What do they do? They say, “Oh, let’s raise interest rates.” It’s the wrong thing to do. I would like to see rates get lower because we could build this into the greatest machine that the world has ever seen, but you can’t do that when everybody immediately raises interest rates. So we had great job numbers. We’re doing great. You know, we’re building more factories. We have more money coming into our country right now from other countries and people than ever before. Wait a minute. What happens? I don’t want to just kill it with high interest rates. Growth is the greatest thing you can have, and growth does not cause inflation. KRISTEN WELKER: Would you be upset if they raised rates? What is your message to them about that? PRES. DONALD TRUMP: I’m– I’m– living with Kevin. I have a lot of respect for him, but my feeling is that when a country is doing well, they shouldn’t be penalized by immediately raising interest rates. They should actually be incentivized. You know, we have debt, we have other things. We have things we want to take care of. I want to go bigger on the military. I really do. If we do what I’m saying, this will be a beautiful, well-oiled machine like you’ve never seen before.
