Donald Trump has said the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point on Wednesday showed the US economy was either “very bad” or the central bank was “playing politics.”
“I guess it shows the economy is very bad to cut it by that much, assuming that they are not just playing politics,” the Republican candidate for the White House told reporters at a stop at a Manhattan bitcoin bar on Wednesday. “The economy would be very bad, or they are playing politics, one or the other. But it was a big cut.”
With less than two months to go until November’s presidential election, Trump’s latest intervention was not the first time he has been critical of Federal chair Jay Powell or accused the independent central bank of acting politically.