Pretty much the only thing everyone agreed on at last month’s FOMC meeting was that policy’s not on a pre-set course and even there, I imagine Stephen Miran was hearing voices: “I need lower rates. I expect lower rates.”

Following the October gathering, Jerome Powell went out of his way to emphasize just how divided the Committee was with regard to this year’s final policy decision. Officials expressed “strongly different views” about the December meeting, he told the press.

Since then, positions on the Committee have seemingly hardened with the likes of Jeff Schmid — who dissented last month in favor of no change to Fed funds — digging in on the hawkish side and Miran still advocating for a half-point cut he has no hope of securing.

Headed into the release of the October meeting minutes, the market-implied probability of a cut on December 10 had slipped below 50%.

By Wednesday afternoon, following the release of the minutes and news that the Fed won’t have the October and November jobs reports prior to next month’s meeting, those odds were below 40%.

“In discussing the near-term course of monetary policy, participants expressed strongly differing views about what policy decision would most likely be appropriate at the Committee’s December meeting,” the minutes read, adding that although “most participants judged that further downward adjustments to [Fed funds] would likely be appropriate as the Committee moved to a more neutral policy stance over time, several of these participants indicated they did not necessarily view another 25bps reduction as likely to be appropriate at the December meeting [while] many suggested that, under their economic outlooks, it would likely be appropriate to keep the target range unchanged for the rest of the year.”

The key word there is “many.” “Many” Fed officials doubted the case for another cut this year, and presumably still do. By contrast, “several” officials said it “could well be appropriate” to cut again in December.

Frankly, I think that’s all you need to know. This is stylized (i.e., simplified and exaggerated), but Miki Bowman, Chris Waller and Stephen Miran are “several” and everyone else is “many.”

Although what sounds like a plurality conceded that the effect of higher tariffs on inflation will be “limited,” and that it was therefore “appropriate for the Committee to ease its policy stance in response to downside risks to employment,” “most” policymakers nevertheless said cutting rates “against a backdrop of elevated inflation… could add to the risk of higher inflation becoming entrenched or could be misinterpreted as implying a lack of policymaker commitment to the 2% inflation objective.”

Bottom line: This is a Committee that’s biased against another cut in December. Donald Trump isn’t going to like that, to put it mildly.

Earlier, Scott Bessent said the administration’s “doing another round of interviews” for Fed Chair candidates. Trump will meet with three finalists midway through next month and will “hopefully have an answer before Christmas.”