“The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long,” Kevin Warsh declared on Wednesday afternoon in the US, following the first Fed hike in three years.

In his opening remarks at the press conference, Warsh said the incoming data “does not tell me that inflation trends have meaningfully improved.” “Too many categories are still posting increases above 3% on both a six- and 12-month basis,” he added.

In my September FOMC preview, I took Warsh to task on the litmus test he delineated last month in Jackson Hole. The Fed, he told the audience in Wyoming, “must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed.”

Data received since then doesn’t suggest inflation inflation’s moving to the Fed’s objective, and “certainly not ‘at sufficient speed'” I wrote four days ago. On Wednesday, Warsh agreed, quoting his own standard and explicitly conceding it isn’t met.

Apparently at Warsh’s request, the Q&A at the presser was more democratic. Steve Liesman, Nick Timiraos and Mike McKee appeared to lose their privileged positions in the queue in favor of sundry nobodies.

The only big gun reporter to get an early question was Colby Smith, who pointed out that the Fed rarely hikes just once. Warsh refused to take the bait. “I’m not in the forward guidance business,” he said. “I won’t prejudge future decisions.”

When CBS noted that a quarter-point rate increase from the Fed “doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” Warsh agreed. “We cannot affect any individual price,” he said. “But what we can do is ensure that any change in relative prices doesn’t broaden out.”

ABC asked about Trump’s calls for cuts. (Somebody had to.) Warsh demurred: “I’ve got nothing for you.” Later, The Washington Examiner mentioned Trump’s threat to sever trade ties with countries that run a surplus with the US if the Fed doesn’t cut rates. (Somebody had to do that too.) Warsh said the Fed will stay in its lane and suggested “the people who do trade policy” do the same.

In response to a question from the FT, Warsh indicated that a majority of Fed officials, including himself, found it hard to describe financial conditions as restrictive. The implication: Policy was likely accommodative, at least at the margins, and Wednesday’s hike was a step towards removing that accommodation.

When Liesman finally got a question, he wondered after Warsh’s views on the neutral rate. Warsh called r-star “useful academically,” but said it “has no effect on operational decisions.”

Politico wondered if traders put too much weight on last week’s CPI report when it came to assessing the likelihood of a hike this week. In response, Warsh simply said he doesn’t himself “wait breathlessly” for the release of any one data point. “Trends matter,” he said. “Data point dependence is a dangerous preoccupation.”

Asked what rising bond yields are trying to tell the Fed, Warsh said three things have pushed long-end Treasury yields higher since the July FOMC meeting: The strength of the US economy, competition for capital amid high-grade corporate issuance to fund the AI buildout and geopolitics. On the latter, Warsh mentioned crack spreads specifically.

In the course of deflecting a question from Timiraos, Warsh emphasized that stable prices are intrinsic to economic prosperity. In hiking rates on Wednesday, the Fed “took an important step towards delivering price stability,” he said.

Earlier this week, Trump chastised his three SCOTUS nominees for disallowing curbs on mail-in voting ahead of the mid-terms. “These are not the people I interviewed,” he seethed, of Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. “They are merely a shell of their original selves.”

I imagine Trump’s thinking something similar about Warsh on Wednesday: “This is not the man I interviewed. He is merely a shell of his original self.”