A comment from Beth Hammack, the Cleveland Fed president, received heavy attention Thursday because some market participants jumped to a particularly zealous conclusion by interpreting it as a sign that the Fed could be ready to cut rates by June. Pressed over when the Fed could cut, Hammack's overarching message was that the Fed wouldn't cut rates until it had more visibility on the economy. She pushed back against concerns that the Fed is always behind the curve by pointing to how the central bank can be nimble when circumstances change. The "if" in this sentence is doing a lot of work, and she made clear she was talking about any number of points in the future, not just June. "You've seen that this is not a Fed that's afraid of moving quickly if we need to move quickly, and so if we have clear and convincing evidence by June [or] July [or] September..." Hammack was interrupted so she didn't complete the thought. Later the conversation came back to June specifically, and Hammack again offered an answer with not one but two conditional "if" qualifiers: "If we have clear and convincing data by June, then I think you'll see the committee move, if we know which way is the right way to move at that point in time." (If we're hungry, we'll eat.) The full CNBC video: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/24/feds-hammack-calls-for-patience-in-assessing-what-impacts-tariffs-will-have-on-the-economy.html