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A less-than-stellar jobs report unveiled Friday has senators up in arms, calling for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates.
“He’s got to lower interest rates,” Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told Fox Business. “And this, if this doesn’t do it for him, I don’t know what will.”
The Labor Department revealed that in July, employers added only 73,000 jobs, a figure well under expectations – likely influenced by increased uncertainty in the economy, given the Trump administration’s usage of tariffs.
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The report also comes on the heels of the Fed’s decision earlier this week not to lower rates, a move heavily scrutinized by congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump.
Moreno, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, has become one of Powell’s most vocal critics and has previously called on him to resign, echoing growing frustrations from Trump.
When asked if it was too late for Powell to lower rates, Moreno said, “That’s why his nickname is ‘too late’” — a name coined by the president during his many social media posts berating the Fed chair.
The Federal Open Market Committee chaired by Powell, which dictates the Fed’s monetary policy decisions, voted 9 to 2 to keep rates static at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. The panel will meet again in September, and some on Capitol Hill are demanding that rates drop.
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“He is too late, but it’s not too late,” continued Moreno. “We can still do it, and that’s why I think President Trump’s suggestion is right that the other governors just kick him out.”
“If he doesn’t do something with rates in September, this guy should be dragged out of there,” he said. “I mean, it’s brutal.”
Other Senate Republicans were less forceful in their feelings on Powell but hoped that a rate change would soon be on the horizon.
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Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told Fox News Business that the jobs report was one piece of the puzzle that the Fed looks at when determining rates, but noted that “it’s looking increasingly clear to me that it’s probably time for the rates to come down.”
And Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said she had wished Powell would have relented and dropped the rates already, but didn’t believe it was too late.
“I hope he decides,” she said. “I hope he reconsiders.”
But Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the banking panel, countered that it was Trump’s tariff strategy that was the reason rates haven’t changed, and she warned that uncertainty driven by duties is “costly in an economy.”
“Powell made clear the problem in the economy, and it’s Trump’s chaos over tariffs that’s preventing the Fed from lowering interest rates and driving down job growth,” the Massachusetts Democrat told Fox Business. “So, there’s a solution right in front of us, and that is for Donald Trump to stop the on again, off again, on again, off, again, tariff craziness.”
Other troubling numbers were included in Friday’s jobs report, notably revisions of job numbers from May and June. The latest report rolled back May’s job numbers by 125,000, dropping the total to 19,000. And in June, the report revised the numbers downward by 133,000, cratering the total jobs created to 14,000.
Trump charged that department’s job numbers were being produced by Biden appointee Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), who he accused of faking “before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of Victory.”
Trump demanded that she be fired, and vowed she would be replaced by someone “much more competent and qualified.”
“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump said in a lengthy post on Truth Social. “McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months.”
“Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative. The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP’ despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting ‘Kamala’ elected – How did that work out? Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should also be put ‘out to pasture,’” he continued.
Fox Business’ requests for comment from the Fed and BLS were not immediately returned.
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