Two days after the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, Stephen Miran, an adviser to President Trump who now serves on the central bank’s board of governors, confirmed he was the only member at the meeting to endorse a swifter and steeper cut.
That made Mr. Miran the dissenting vote in the Fed’s decision this week to reduce borrowing costs by a quarter of a percentage point. But the new Fed governor, who detailed his thinking Friday on CNBC, said he came to the determination independently from the White House, where he has taken a leave of absence during his service at the central bank.
“I will do independent analysis based on my interpretation of the data, based on my interpretation of the economy,” Mr. Miran said. “And that’s all that I will do.”
Those comments were Mr. Miran’s first since joining the Fed, and they underscored the delicate political dance he faces given the unique circumstances of his appointment. Until the president nominated him to fill a roughly four-month vacancy, Mr. Miran had served as the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, where he produced research to defend and advance Mr. Trump’s policy agenda.
The unorthodox arrangement has stoked concerns about conflicts of interest, given the Fed’s longstanding political independence from the White House. Mr. Trump has regularly attacked the central bank in pursuit of lower interest rates, and many economists and former government officials have questioned whether Mr. Miran can put the health of the economy over the political needs of the president now that he is directly involved in setting the nation’s monetary policy.
On Friday, Mr. Miran signaled he could resign his posting at the White House if he were appointed to a longer term at the Fed. He also acknowledged he spoke with Mr. Trump on Tuesday morning, before the central bank convened its two-day meeting.
But the newly confirmed Fed governor described it as a congratulatory phone call, saying that the president did not ask him to commit to any course of action on interest rates. Mr. Trump has demanded that the central bank slash borrowing costs by three percentage points, perhaps immediately, an idea that has troubled even some conservative economists.
“I did not talk to him about how I would vote,” Mr. Miran said.
Alongside the Fed’s interest rate decision, the central bank published a “dot plot” this week that aggregates individual officials’ economic forecasts, including its projections for borrowing costs. Most policymakers signaled the Fed would cut by another half a percentage point this year, bringing interest rates to a range of 3.5 percent to 3.75 percent.
But one dot stood apart from the rest. One official expected interest rates to decline this year to between 2.75 percent and 3 percent, suggesting big cuts at the two remaining meetings this year. Mr. Miran acknowledged on Friday that dot was his, as he laid out the case for a swift and substantial relaxing in interest rates.
“I don’t see any material inflation from tariffs,” said Mr. Miran, who added that prices had been further pushed down by the president’s other policies, including deportations, arguing that changes in immigration would cause “disinflation.”
Mr. Miran offered some of the same views as when he was at the White House, where he produced research arguing that Mr. Trump’s punishing global tariffs would not cause inflation. Asked about the discrepancy between his perspective and the rest of the Fed, Mr. Miran said he had been a governor for only a matter of hours before the vote, offering him little time to persuade his peers.
Mr. Miran is one of many pressure points Mr. Trump has sought to exploit in his quest to force the Fed to lower borrowing costs more drastically. The president has talked openly about wanting a majority of the Fed’s board in his corner, something he can control based on his power to appoint those officials.
Mr. Miran filled a role abruptly left vacant by Adriana Kugler, who resigned in August several months before her term was set to expire. The president is trying to force another Fed opening by accusing Lisa Cook of mortgage fraud, in a case that has reached the Supreme Court.
And Mr. Trump has made no secret of his desire to replace Jerome H. Powell, the Fed’s chair, whose term expires next year. This week, Mr. Powell dodged questions related to Mr. Miran’s apparent conflict of interest, reiterating that members of the central bank are committed to keeping politics out of deliberations.
“We’re strongly committed to maintaining our independence,” Mr. Powell said, “and beyond that, I really don’t have anything to share.”