Mike McKee

Food prices are up.

Gasoline prices higher than when he took office.

Those are the prices that Americans notice and hate.

So isn't it a risk to cut rates significantly in an...

regime where inflation is rising?

Well, we were talking before we came on about your view of our start, the neutral rate.

We've got inflation running at basically 3%.

You've got unemployment at 4.3%, which is historically very low.

The Atlanta Fed says we're growing 3.8% or grew 3.8% in the third quarter.

There's no economic model that I know of that would get you to a near zero neutral rate with those kind of conditions.

But you can't model that.

What do you mean I can't model that?

The models, if you put in the numbers that we have right now, it wouldn't spit out near zero or half a percent.

Oh, real rate.

I want to ask you about something in your speech that has confused a lot of people, including me.

You argue that tax cuts are going to help lower the deficit by increasing economic activity.

And at the same time, you argue that tariffs, which are taxes on the American people, are going to lower the deficit.

You have one way raising taxes and the other cutting taxes at the same time lowering the deficit.

How does that work?

Well, we haven't seen any evidence in import prices that that's happening.