It’s tempting to say there’s no chance of a Fed cut at what, whether anyone on the Committee admits it or not, will be an awkward two-day policy gathering this week.

As far as anyone’s aware, Chris Waller and Miki Bowman — both erstwhile hawks whose abrupt dovish conversions raise questions about their commitment to objectivity in the face of scrutiny from an overbearing US president — are the only officials who strongly favor a cut in July.

Maybe they could convince a colleague or two to consider a move, but unless Donald Trump’s Tony Soprano act at the Marriner Eccles building last week (“Hey Jay, come look at this elevator shaft. That’s a long way down isn’t it?”) made Jerome Powell rethink his fidelity to the “wait-and-see” stance that’s defined the Chair’s rates rhetoric in 2025, the Fed’s on hold until September’s SEP meeting.

Here’s the thing, though: Dissents are rare, and notwithstanding the customary spin — which says disagreement’s a sign of institutional vitality — this isn’t the Bank of England. FOMC voters don’t dissent willy-nilly. “Diversity of opinion” or not, the Fed tries, whenever possible, to manufacture consensus on the way to a unanimous vote.

If Fed is indeed on hold at the July meeting, Waller or Bowman will probably dissent. They may both dissent. And that’ll be propaganda fodder for Trump and his fellowship of cartoon villains. Trump’s repeatedly called for the Fed Board to “do something,” where that means overrule Powell or otherwise mutiny. Never mind that the June dot plot plainly suggested there’s more support for Powell’s position than that of Waller and Bowman.

Lost in Trump’s attempt to strong-arm the Fed is a very solid case for a cut. That’s the great (or tragic) irony of this whole ridiculous episode.

Yes, a lot of the incoming data argues against cutting rates, as do near record-high equity multiples and proliferating evidence of froth in (highly) speculative corners of the market. However, there’s good reason to believe that hiring, and particularly private sector hiring, is set to slow fairly sharply. Indeed, June’s ADP release and the government’s jobs report both pointed in that direction.

Recall the chart above. It shows the difference between private sector hiring and state and local government payrolls from the government’s establishment survey. In June, private-sector job creation undershot state and local government hiring.

Spending, meanwhile, is slowing. Maybe it’s still “resilient,” maybe it isn’t, but it ain’t gangbusters anymore. And the housing market’s a disaster. Lowering the Fed funds rate isn’t going to fix housing (I don’t care what Howard Lutnick says), but it won’t hurt either.

Most importantly if you’re into this sort of thing, short-term neutral’s likely much closer to the long run equilibrium rate than it was as recently as last year, which means the current policy rate’s restrictive by somewhere between 50bps and 125bps.

In my opinion, the Fed can cut by at least half a point over the next several months without risking the sort of inflation that can’t be brushed aside as a “one-off price level change,” as some economists are fond of characterizing tariff-related price increases.

Indeed, the Fed’s almost surely going to cut by 25bps in September and another 25bps in December, which brings us directly to a familiar monetary policy quandary: If you know you’re going to cut at the next meeting, why would you not cut at this meeting? I think they should. Cut, I mean. And I’ve been saying as much since the May FOMC. The best argument for not cutting is, ironically, Trump. To cut is to relent. And to relent is to relinquish the Fed’s institutional credibility. Whatever’s left of it, anyway.

By his own account, Trump’s well aware that his pressure campaign makes it harder for Powell to acquiesce. Which raises the obvious question: Why doesn’t he (Trump) just shut up? The short answer (and there’s a long answer too, but I’ll spare you) is that his pride won’t allow for that. He wants to be seen as having personally compelled a policy pivot, even as that perception could conceivably engender the opposite of the market reaction he’s after.

Complicating this situation for Powell is the July FOMC’s adjacency to this week’s raft of top-tier US macro releases, including the first read on Q2 GDP and, of course, the new jobs report. The Fed will have the former in hand on Wednesday afternoon, but not the latter, although I assume they’ll get some manner of heads up if the NFP headline looks like it might print in negative territory.

If the Fed stays on hold and the jobs report comes in weak, triggering an adverse reaction in risk assets, Trump would throw a chair through a window. And maybe a Chair too.