President Trump and top White House officials are ramping up pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates after two surprisingly strong economic reports.
Data released by the Labor Department on Friday showed inflation falling below economist expectations in January, two days after the January jobs report showed a surprising surge in hiring last month.
The double dose of good economic news was sorely needed for Trump and Republicans, who have faced backlash over the state of the job market and inflation for more than a year.
“We’ve brought costs way down, and the numbers were surprising — except to me, they weren’t surprising,” Trump said Friday at the White House.
“The inflation numbers are way down. We brought it back on track,” he continued.
Trump administration officials are now arguing that the combination of better-than-expected job gains and inflation should convince the Fed to heed the president’s call for lower interest rates.
“With inflation now low and stable, America’s economy is set to turbocharge even further through long-overdue interest rate cuts from the Fed,” White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai said in a statement following the consumer price index (CPI) report.
