Trump wants the Fed to bail him out before the midterm elections. That probably won’t happen.

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his desire to exercise control over the Federal Reserve’s economic policy. His main demand? Reduce interest rates.

This, Trump seems to reason, will give a short-term boost to the economy, even if it causes longer-term pain.

So after the central bank did the opposite and raised rates slightly in early September following increased and prolonged price inflation, the president panicked.

“LOWER THE RATE OR I WILL STOP TRADE WITH COUNTRIES WE HAVE A DEFICIT WITH,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. He later expressed his displeasure with the new higher rates several times during an interview with TIME magazine on September 28, accusing the board of “Trump derangement syndrome,” but he also seemed to accept its inability to influence the 12-member electorate — something he has been trying to do for nearly a decade, beginning in his first term.

“I don’t blame Kevin,” Trump said, according to the TIME transcript. “I actually said, ‘What are you going to do?'”

With his approval ratings plummeting, and even waning support from Republican voters, Trump may need all the help he can get to showcase an improving economic situation ahead of the November midterm elections.

Despite its agitation, it is unlikely, experts told TPM, to get this from the Fed, which is scheduled to vote on interest rates again on October 28.

“I would be shocked if they cut rates right now because the fact is (inflation is) still well above 2%,” Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive research and policy think tank, told TPM. “There is no universe where it would make sense to cut rates right now.”

The Fed strives to keep national employment as high as possible while keeping inflation in check, a balancing act it can only achieve with its rate-setting leverage.

The 12 voting members of the Federal Reserve’s Open Committee unanimously decided last month that the first rate hike since 2023 was in order. High inflation is one of the reasons. Consumers know this, and data shows that prices have been above the Fed’s target of a 2% annual increase for several years. At the same time, after a historically low unemployment rate and a series of years of high debt for workers, long-term unemployment is gradually increasing and job hopping is decreasing, meaning the unemployed are finding it harder to find work and workers are keeping their jobs at the expense of higher wages. In 2025, employers created just over 15,000 jobs per month on average, a paltry figure compared to the more than 121,000 jobs created per month the previous year.

After the Bureau of Labor’s September jobs report released last week showed continued depression in the labor market, the odds that Fed governors will raise rates again in October fell from about 51% in late September to 19% as of Monday, according to CME FedWatch, a data source used by the Atlanta Fed.

But even if the central bank maintains its current rate stance in October, experts told TPM that another hike is likely imminent.

“I think the expectation is that they will (raise rates) again,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told TPM. “It doesn’t have to happen at the next meeting, it could happen afterwards. I don’t think this jobs report was so weak that it’s going to change course in the coming months.”

Historically high yields on Treasury bonds, or bondholders’ investment returns, also likely prompted Warsh and other members of the Fed’s Board of Governors to take action, Ajilore said. Trump has shown himself capable of influencing financial markets by posting flippant messages on social media about what to invest in and when. But bond yields are a way for markets to control Trump’s runaway federal deficit and any risk of compromising the Fed’s independence.

“If there is any indication that the Fed, or its chairman, was influenced by the White House, you will see that reflected in the market,” Ajilore said. Bond yields are high in part “because there is concern that there may be undue influence.”

So far, Gould said, there is no evidence that the Fed is not succumbing to pressure tactics from the White House.

“I think independence holds,” she said.