Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that President Donald Trump's tariffs are leading to inflation, confirming what economists have been warning since he first announced his idiotic trade policies earlier this year.
"Inflation for goods has picked up, reflecting the effects of tariffs," Powell said after the Federal Reserve Board voted to cut interest rates to address what Powell described as a “challenging” problem as both inflation and unemployment increase in tandem.
"Labor demand has clearly softened," Powell added, reflecting recent reports showing that the United States actually lost jobs in recent months. "The median projection of the unemployment rate is 4.5% at the end of this year.”
Powell’s comments are likely to enrage Trump, who has been falsely insisting that costs are going down and that the economy is doing well. He even said that people who are worried about costs should simply do with less.
“You can give up certain products. You can give up pencils. That’s under the China policy, you know every child can get 37 pencils—they only need one or two, you know they don’t need that many,” Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania Tuesday night. “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter, two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson is also trying to gaslight Americans into believing that Trump and the GOP are addressing the cost of living, telling Americans to simply “relax” and to wait for prices to magically go down.
Trump already loathes Powell, who he has threatened to fire multiple times, even though the Federal Reserve is meant to be an independent entity free from political pressure. So investors are likely watching Trump’s Truth Social account with bated breath to see how he responds to Powell’s latest criticism of Trump’s tariffs.
But ultimately, Powell's assertion that Trump's tariffs are spiking inflation is just confirmation of what voters already know to be true.
Polls show that voters believe that costs are still too high, that tariffs are to blame, and that they disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy.
An Economist/YouGov poll released Tuesday found that just 37% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy, while just 33% approve of how he's handling inflation. It also found that 34% of Americans view the economy as "fair,” 39% view it as “poor,” and 52% believe that it is getting worse.
Frustration with Trump's mishandling of the economy has led to Democrats overperforming in recent elections, even flipping seats in districts that Trump once carried by wide margins. And now Republicans are sounding the alarm, saying that the midterms could be an absolute bloodbath if the GOP doesn’t address affordability soon.
“For Republicans to mitigate a disastrous midterm election, it all starts with tariffs,” right-wing radio host Erick Erickson wrote on X.
Now we wait to see if that transpires into action or another of Trump’s pathetic hissy fits.
Emily Singer December 11, 2025 at 01:00AM From Daily Kos
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