Marketplace · Friday, July 24, 2026
Stacy Vanek Smith asks Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Walsh how he plans to navigate a difficult economic environment. She points out the dilemma of potentially not raising rates due to an anemic job market and high borrowing costs, while cutting rates seems risky with inflation potentially rising.
“How are you going to navigate like between this rock and hard place that you're in?”
“I feel like you can't really raise interest rates because the job market's kind of anemic and borrowing costs are already quite high. But cutting interest rates seem really risky, especially with inflation, uh, finally coming down, but potentially on the rise because of oil prices.”
“I just, I I would want to know like what are you looking at? What are you prioritizing?”