Trump Accuses Yellen of Playing Politics With Rates

While most of the political attention has been anchored on Hillary Clinton’s bungled evasions regarding her pneumonia, Donald Trump has shifted his attention on Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s actions regarding interest rates.

In a CNBC interview, Trump accused Yellen and her Federal Reserve colleagues of keeping rates at historically low levels for the course of this year election year in order to help President Obama give the impression that the U.S. economy is vibrant. Trump said the Fed’s action created a "false stock market" and added that Yellen should be "ashamed" that the central bank is not operating as an independent entity.

"Any increase at all will be a very, very small increase because they want to keep the market up so Obama goes out and let the new guy ... raise interest rates ... and watch what happens in the stock market," Trump said, adding that after Obama leaves office in January, "He wants to play golf for the rest of this life, and he doesn't care what's going to happen after January."

Trump also faulted the very low rates for damaging the financial viability of Americans that make an effort to save money.

"The ones who did it right [and] saved their money [and] they cut down on their mortgages ... now they're practically getting zero interest on the money," he said.

Neither the White House nor Yellen responded to Trump’s comments. The Federal Reserve will vote on whether to raise rates when its Federal Open Market Committee meets next week.