On the September 17 edition of All In with Chris Hayes on MS NOW, Hayes was once again painting an overwhelmingly negative picture of America. Never mind that unemployment sits at a stable 4.1 percent. Never mind that real median household income reached an all-time high of $87,460 in 2025. Never mind that the S&P 500 has repeatedly hit record highs in 2026, or that average 401(k) balances climbed to a record $155,800 in the second quarter. And never mind that violent crime plummeted 9.3 percent in 2025—the largest one-year decline since national estimates began in 1936—while murder dropped 18.1 percent.
The line that caught my attention was when he said:
“Yesterday, as the news broke, the Fed was gonna raise interest rates, try to cool inflation, inflation induced by Donald Trump’s war.”
CPI inflation right now is 3.4 percent. Under Biden, it peaked at a staggering 9.1 percent in June 2022—the largest 12-month increase since November 1981. Yet, Hayes wants you to treat today’s 3.4 percent as an emergency.
On September 16, the Federal Reserve voted 12–0 to raise its target range a quarter point, bringing it to **3.75–4.00 percent**. Officials claimed the hike was necessary. They did this despite President Trump calling for the exact opposite. Trump publicly argued that rates should be slashed to 1 percent or less to let the economy breathe. Lower rates make borrowing cheaper for families and businesses, which encourages spending, investment, and hiring.
The Fed chose to choke off credit. This is the standard central bank theory: make new mortgages, car loans, and credit cards more expensive. Force businesses to pay more to finance their inventory, equipment, and expansion. By intentionally suffocating demand, they hope to drag inflation down over a few years. Then, when it still doesn’t come down, they will simply raise rates again—depending on who is president, and controls Congress of course.
Higher borrowing costs are felt immediately. They don’t magically make groceries or gas cheaper. What you actually get is a engineered slowdown: less consumer spending, depressed business investment, and fewer jobs. In what parallel universe does suffocating families and businesses help grow an economy?
The most glaring issue, however, is the timing. This tightening occurred exactly 48 days before the November 3 midterm elections.
Look at the contrast in how the Fed reacts based on who is in office. When Biden took office in January 2021, inflation was at a low 1.4 percent and interest rates were anchored at 0 to 0.25 percent. As consumer prices skyrocketed month after month throughout 2021, the Fed kept interest rates at that absolute zero floor. Officials repeatedly dismissed the unfolding crisis as “transitory.” They did not implement a single rate hike until March 2022, staring directly at a report showing inflation had already reached 7.9 percent and was still rising.
Yet today, under Trump, inflation is down to 3.4 percent and moving in the right direction. They raised rates anyway. This unnecessary tightening cools economic growth, squeezes working-class voters, hurts Republicans, and hands a massive political gift to Democrats right before an election.
An unelected board of bankers just intentionally made credit more expensive on the eve of a major vote, and Americans are the ones who pay the price.
End The Fed
Instead of covering the massive fallout of a pre-election rate hike, Chris Hayes spent his entire segment fearmongering over a poster board graphic about the Kennedy Center to set up an anti-Trump pile-on.
He said:
Trump jumped on Air Force One. And he headlined a campaign rally in North Carolina, where Republicans are really in trouble, their Senate candidates pulling, like, double digits behind. He was rambling and dismissive. He even got heckled a bunch. And then on his return flight at the end of a long day, guys, 80 years old, uh, as Air Force One taxi to a stop at Joint Base Andrews, photographers spotted the president at work late into the night through the windows. Was he being briefed on the Fed and interest rates, or the latest news from Iran, or details about diesel refinery capacity? No, no no no, here’s what he was doing. He was studying a giant poster board with what appears to be a picture of a construction site. Beneath the headline and red lettering that appears to read Kennedy Centre demolished. Or maybe demolition L I s H O N spelled incorrectly.
Confirming what we already know about MS NOW’s real motives, Hayes never returned to the economics of the rate hike. Instead, he passed the baton to a curated lineup of Democrats to turn news into a coordinated campaign attack.
The live graphic on the screen teased what was up next: Senator Adam Schiff and Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa. Later in the hour, they brought out veteran Democratic operative and former Obama strategist David Plouffe.
This wasn’t a news broadcast; it was a campaign strategy session masquerading as journalism. Hayes and his guests used the rest of the hour to question the President’s mental focus, completely ignoring the stable 4.1% unemployment rate and record-high $87,460 median household income we are experiencing.
They even dedicated a segment to parading out establishment “RINO” Republicans who are allegedly running away from the administration to try to save their own skin ahead of the midterms.
This reveals Chris Hayes for what he truly is: not a news anchor, but a Democratic activist using his platform to influence a high-stakes election.
When an unelected central bank squeezes the American family exactly 48 days before voters head to the ballot box, a real journalist would demand accountability.
A partisan operative like Hayes shifts the focus to a late-night poster board photo, rolls out top Democratic candidates, and manufactures a crisis to help the left win elections.
The liberal media doesn’t want to report the news—they want to help the Fed manipulate the election.
Watch on Rumble