Powell Brings Some Positivity Absent from the Press

The Wall Street Journal news section imagines a “lose-lose scenario”

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell at his press conference May 7, 2025, in a screenshot from the Fed’s video feed.

The news section of the Wall Street Journal previewed today’s Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meeting with a news article that began, “The haphazard rollout of President Trump’s tariff policy threatens to put the Federal Reserve in a lose-lose scenario: Navigate a recession or manage a period of stagflation.”

The Journal’s chief economics correspondent, Nick Timiraos, even went on CNBC to declare that “the Fed is off the hook for being blamed for a recession.” He said the blame would go to President Trump for his tariffs. Trump earlier this week called the Journal a “rotten newspaper” that “has truly gone to hell.”