“Peter Navarro says Fed's rate raise is 'a bad decision'”, 17 September 2026 (Photo via The Hill — the original report)
As it ran on the front
On August 28, Kevin Warsh told a room at the Fed's retreat that the central bank was not ruling out a rate hike, because underlying inflation wasn't moving toward target fast enough. On August 29, the New York Times described the situation Warsh had just laid out as a "no-win situation" — his own words had produced somebody else's headline. By September 8, investors had already priced in the hike and, on the record, shrugged at the president's threat to halt trade if the Fed didn't cut instead. On September 11, the inflation number came in unchanged from the month before, still above the 2 percent target, with the war in Iran running in the background, and the odds moved from "likely" to "increasingly likely," which is what a wire story says when the number hasn't changed but the calendar has.
On September 17 the FOMC met and voted 12 to nothing to raise the target range to 3.75 to 4 percent, the first increase since July 2023, with a note that another quarter point, toward 4.1, may follow. Nothing in that vote was hostile. It was unanimous. A board cannot be hostile to itself by a vote of 12-0; hostility requires an outside party, and the outside party, speaking to reporters in North Carolina that afternoon, was the same man who appointed the chairman he was defending in the sentence right before he attacked the board that chairman runs.…
…(cont) The president told reporters he'd instructed Warsh to "do what you want," and that he wanted the Fed "to be independent" — a sentiment delivered in the same breath as his own admission that he didn't expect Warsh to follow his directions anyway, which reads either as a definition of independence or as a boss narrating his own obsolescence and calling it policy. He then reopened the trade threat he'd floated earlier in the month: halt a broad swath of trade over the hike, the same hike he says he told the chairman to make on his own.
Peter Navarro, from inside the same building, called the vote "a bad decision," which is at least internally consistent — somebody in that West Wing is on record disagreeing with the independence the president just praised.
The range moved a quarter point regardless. The mortgage resets off that number, the car note reprices off that number, the revolving balance on the card reprices off that number, hon, whether the board that Wednesday was independent or hostile or both in the same paragraph. The gap between the quote and the vote is exactly 3.75 to 4 percent, unanimous, and it shows up on statements with names on them, not on transcripts with quotes in them.
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“He tells the guy he picked to run the Fed "do what you want" and calls that independence, then the guy does exactly what the inflation numbers said to do and the president calls the vote hostile — that's not independence, that's a leash with a snap-back clause. Twelve to nothing, unanimous, and Navarro's already on the record calling it a bad decision from inside the same building. The card statement doesn't care whose fault it is this week — the number on it just went up a quarter point, and it's got your name on it, not the chairman's.”
“Look, "do what you want" is the definition of independence — the president's on record wanting Warsh independent, that's not in dispute. And "hostile" isn't about Warsh personally, it's about the board — well, Warsh runs the board, and the vote was twelve to nothing, unanimous, so... he's calling his own appointee's unanimous vote hostile. Okay, that's not what I meant to say. The trade threat is leverage, separate track, nothing to do with the rate decision he just called hostile — different subject entirely, moving on.”
White House adviser Peter Navarro on Wednesday blasted the Federal Reserve's move to raise interest rates in several years, calling it "a bad decision." The central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), led by Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, voted unanimously to increase the central bank’s benchmark interest rate to a range of 3.75 percent…
The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2023, prompting renewed criticism from progressive economists and Democratic lawmakers who argue that President Donald Trump’s tariffs and warmongering are fueling inflation and further squeezing working families. The 12-member Federal Open…
President Donald Trump tore into the “hostile” Federal Reserve after the board voted on Wednesday to raise interest rates but held back criticism of Chairman Kevin Warsh, whom he tapped to lead the central bank earlier this year. Speaking with reporters in North Carolina, Trump was asked about the interest rate decision.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.
