Kansas City Fed’s Schmid shows hesitation about widely expected September rate cut

Written by Jeff Cox, CNBC

Kansas City Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Schmid expressed doubt about lowering interest rates in September, saying policymakers still have more work to do on inflation.

Speaking to CNBC from the Fed’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Schmid pushed back on market pricing that points strongly to the Federal Open Market Committee lowering its key borrowing rate next month.

“We’re in a really good spot, and I think we really have to have very definitive data to be moving that policy rate right now,” he said during a “Squawk Box” interview that aired Thursday. “In September, we’ll get around tables and we’ll collaborate and we’ll figure it out, but yeah, I think there’s a lot to be said between now and September.”

Schmid is a voter this year on the rate-setting FOMC. The Kansas City Fed each year hosts the Jackson Hole gathering, which on Friday will feature Chair Jerome Powell’s closely watched keynote speech.

The comments come with markets pricing in a nearly 80% chance of a quarter percentage point reduction at the Sept. 16-17 meeting, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch.

President Donald Trump and other White House officials have been applying aggressive pressure on the Fed to cut, maintaining that tariffs are not aggravating inflation and lower interest rates are needed to spark the housing market and lower government borrowing costs.

However, Schmid said he’s not convinced that the Fed is making enough progress toward its 2% inflation goal.

“It seems like that last mile is pretty hard, and I’m one of a lot of folks that believe that there is a real, hard, true cost to that last percent of inflation that’s in the system,” he said. “We might see a tick up. I would say that the inflation number’s probably closer to three than it is two, and I think we’ve got some work to do.”

Normally outside the political fray, the Fed has found itself at the center of multiple controversies lately, from Trump’s push for lower rates to questions raised over the massive renovation project at two of its Washington, D.C. buildings.

A new wrinkle emerged Wednesday when Trump and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte accused Fed Governor Lisa Cook of mortgage fraud. Pulte alleged on social media and a CNBC interview Wednesday that Cook illegally took out federally backed loans on properties in Michigan and Georgia. Trump demanded that Cook resign, but she said she won’t be “bullied” into leaving her post.

“We have responsibilities as professionals, inside the Federal Reserve. I’m sure she’ll handle matters as she needs to handle them,” Schmid said of the case.

Asked about the pressure generally being applied to central bank policy makers, he said: “Great steel is tested by fire. So, so let’s have the conversation. It’s more important, actually, that the American public has an understanding what the Fed is and what it does, and that they have a value proposition about what we do.”

Minutes from the July meeting released Wednesday showed officials concerned about both inflation and unemployment. Schmid said he thinks the labor market is in “solid” shape.