Last spring, Senator Elizabeth Warren expressed due concern that newly confirmed Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh had “proven himself to be Donald Trump’s sock puppet….” But in his first speech to the Fed’s annual summer fling in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Warsh showed some resistance to Trump’s blatant and ongoing pressure for lower interest rates:
Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said Friday that inflation is still too high and suggested the central bank may have to raise interest rates in the coming months to bring it down, a clearer signal than he has previously sent about his economic outlook.
In his first high-profile speech at the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Warsh acknowledged that recent U.S. reports show that inflation has cooled a bit, but “they do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.”
“We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed,” Warsh said. “Otherwise, we have work to do” [Christopher Rugaber, “Fed Chair Warsh Signals Stubborn Inflation May Require Rate Hikes in Jackson Hole Speech,” AP via PBS Newshour, 2026.08.28].
I’d rather see lower prices and lower interest rates, but I recognize, as Trump does not but as a Fed Chair must, that just asserting our wishes does not remake reality.