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Below is a copy of the interview with Gary Cohen, Vice Chairman of IBM and former Director of the American National Economic Council, which was broadcast on “Confronting the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on September 21, 2025.

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Margaret Brennan: We are now moving at a look at the American economy. Gary Cohen, head of the National Economic Council of the White House, was the first Trump administration. Good morning. It is great to return to you.

Gary Cohen: Good morning. Thanks for hosting me.

Margaret Brennan: Then, finally happened. The federal reserve reduced interest rates by quarter, which was expected. Therefore, the prices are now in this range from four to four and a quarter of a percent, which is the lowest level since 2022. The president said that all this was late. What is changing now?

Gary Cohen: So, see, I think the Federal Reserve gave us a lot of important information last week. As I said, they started to reduce interest rates, and go to four to four and a quarter. They also gave us their view. Therefore, the 17 conservatives gave us their expectations where they believe that interest rates are going. Therefore, the plot they put in general appear, they believe that interest rates will be reduced twice throughout this year. Now it is not 100 % clear, because the committee is divided. There are about seven members of the committee who do not want another discount this year, but there are 10 members of the committee who want at least two other discounts, and one wants more than discounts. So that the average is to two cuts this year, which will take the rate of federal funds, and it is important to understand the rate of federal funds, that this decreases to 3.6 % for the end of the year. The important thing is that the committee was somewhat unanimous. I think people were concerned about the independence of the federal reserve. I think the Federal Reserve clearly showed themselves independent thinkers. They took into account all economic data, and they came out of the expectations that were logical based on what is going on in the economy today.

Margaret Brennan: Therefore, when prices drop, money becomes mainly cheaper. But what does it actually mean?

Gary Cohen: Yes and no. So, what the Federal Reserve determines is that they determine the rate of federal funds. This is the night rates that banks receive each other on borrowing on a guaranteed basis. There is nothing to do as American consumers borrow money. Unfortunately, American consumers borrow money for more than five years, seven years, and 10 years and thirty years, because this is the place where car loans, credit card loans, student loans and mortgages are indexed. Interest rates are not determined by the Federal Reserve. It is determined by the open market. These prices, in fact, after cutting the prices earlier this week, have risen slightly that it said had decreased over the past few months. But these prices do not decrease automatically when the federal reserve reduces rates. They have a greater relationship with the market, which is the demand for supply that determines those prices.

Margaret Brennan: So one of the other things highlighted by the Federal Reserve here is that the labor market is, “really cooling”. This is what the head of nutrition Powell says.

Gary Cohen: Yes.

Margaret Brennan: The administration, the treasury minister, says, bad for data. They do not see this in job numbers. So what is it? What happens here?

Gary Cohen: Well, see, the president came out of his way to talk about the double mandate with the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has requirements that are supposed to manage the interest rate policy, and one is called stable prices, which means inflation by 2 %. The other is a complete work. Full employment is exactly what it looks. The president said, see, we will have to deal with the full employment part of the equation, although we still have an enlarged system. Therefore, the Federal Reserve itself and the Conservative Council have admitted that we have a hanging labor market, and we see that the data over the past three or four months, we have moved from the creation of more than 100,000 jobs per month to create less than 50,000 jobs per month. It may be temporary, and it may be completely temporary, but the reality is, we have seen the labor market decomposing. We have also seen that companies announce a huge amount of capital expenses and capital expenses that will enter into the system. I think it is interesting to go back and look at what is happening in the world today. I think we have seen companies cut the amount of employees. As you know, when companies take and put them in a very difficult environment and increase the cost of input costs. The inputs rise due to the definitions. They have risen other reasons, and they are unable to raise prices to the final consumer. A single lever that they can withdraw to ensure that they keep their sound margins that it can reduce the cost of work. We got out of a difficult situation in Covid where companies were already afraid of the ability to attract and keep people, so they were storing work. So we moved from the position of the chunky employment to the situation today where companies are very aggressive about managing their expenses, and the only expenses they can manage are the cost of work. So, they leave their workforce to decrease naturally as people continue outside the work system, and we see it in data, and I think they are clearly appearing. I realize this in this work this week,

Margaret Brennan: But when you ask the administration about this point, let’s say, well, the productivity will increase, and there are these technological transformations that occur. So this data is distorted. Are you specifically talking about technology, or do you say in all fields?

Gary Cohen: I say in all fields. I mean, we- we have seen in all fields, and we saw anecdotal evidence of it. I have seen, and I heard it directly from the CEO of companies in every working line, they went out on their way to reduce human capital. So only the Q2 data is beautiful and interesting. Corporate revenues rose about 6.3 % for Q2 and corporate profits rose to 12 %. The way you do, unless you raise consumer prices, we, and we have not seen much prices to the consumer, do you have to lower something from the expenses bucket. The only thing they reduce is to reduce employment costs. We have seen it in US data. We have seen it in private data, and we saw it in the anecdotal data.

Margaret Brennan: Then, the president signed an executive on Friday, I want to ask you about it, because you have this role in IBM, and some insight in technology. The matter will impose a $ 100,000 fee on visas granted to foreign workers and high skills and H-1B visas. “Wall Street Journal” said that this caused, such as panic, because there were not many details, such as Apple, Google and Microsoft. Do you cause panic in IBM? I mean what is happening?

Gary Cohen: The- I think it caused panic during the weekend because people were not sure of what was going on with the current H-1B visas. It was cleaned during the weekend, so at this stage, there is no panic in the system. Everyone who gets a H-1B visa understands his position and understands how- how- how it will work. I really think this is a good idea. If you understand the H-1B visa program in the United States, historically, it was a lottery system. Therefore, companies turned these visas, then the United States government places them. If you are telling a company now, look, you need to spend $ 100,000 to get one of these visas, you will not only request a visa and put a lottery in the lottery, unless it is a very skilled person, which you cannot use in the United States. This visa program aims to high skilled workers, where you cannot employ this person in the United States. So, if this is what he uses, we will ultimately attend high skill in the United States. This will help develop our economy, and this is good for all of us.

Margaret Brennan: We will see. Gary Cohen, thank you for seeing you, as always. We will return.