You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Federal Reserve Leaves Interest Rates Unchanged, Resisting Trump’s Pressure to Lower Them

HeadlineJan 29, 2026

In economic news, the U.S. Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged Wednesday, resisting pressure from President Trump to lower them. This comes as the Fed and its chairman, Jerome Powell, are facing a criminal investigation launched by Trump’s ally, Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host who is currently the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. On Tuesday, Powell confirmed that he attended the Supreme Court’s oral arguments over Trump’s effort to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

Christopher Rugaber: “I wanted to ask — you know, you attended the Supreme Court hearing last week on the Lisa Cook case, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent criticized that as political. Can you say why you attended and what you would say in response to the secretary’s criticism?”

Jerome Powell: “So, let me start with, I — I don’t respond to comments by other officials, whoever they may be. It’s just not appropriate to do that. I will tell you why I attended. I would say that that case is perhaps the most important legal case in the Fed’s 113-year history.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top