WASHINGTON — President Trump criticized the Federal Reserve on Thursday for raising interest rates, a rare rebuke by a sitting president that upends longstanding White House protocol to avoid commenting on monetary policy.
Mr. Trump, in an interview with CNBC set to air on Friday morning, said that he was “not thrilled” about the Fed’s decision to raise interest rates twice so far this year, to a current range of 1.75 to 2 percent. He implied that the moves, which are aimed at getting interest rates back to historically normal levels, could derail his administration’s efforts to bolster the economy and put the United States at a disadvantage.
“I don’t like all of this work that we’re putting into the economy and then I see rates going up,” Mr. Trump said, according to excerpts released by CNBC. “I am not happy about it.”
The highly unusual comments come as Mr. Trump and Republicans try to make a booming economy a big issue in the midterm elections this year. At a White House event on Thursday, Mr. Trump — flanked by executives from some of the biggest companies in the country — announced a worker retraining program that he said would further goose employment. On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers are trying to pass a second round of tax cuts that would make permanent many of the individual cuts in last year’s $1.5 trillion package.
