Friday morning, the jobs report came in much stronger than expected — strong enough that traders started betting the Federal Reserve's next move would be a rate HIKE. Within hours, the president posted this, in all caps, at the Fed and its chairman Kevin Warsh: "LOWER THE RATE OR I'LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT." That's the event. Now watch the newsrooms iron it flat. * Reuters: "Trump says if the Fed doesn't cut rates, he'll stop trading with some nations." Let's take that headline apart like a cheap watch. "Says" — the verb you use for a man announcing his lunch order. And "some nations" — the countries America runs a trade deficit with are China, Mexico, Vietnam and most of the rest of the list, about $1.2 trillion worth of deficit last year. "Some nations" is calling a house fire warmth in a few rooms. * CNN went with "Trump says he will cease trading with top partners unless Fed lowers rates." Half credit: "top partners" is honest about the scale. But "says he will cease" is the butler translation of an all-caps scream — sir has indicated he may discontinue global commerce. * The New York Times found the right verb: "Trump Threatens to Halt Some Trade Unless the Fed Cuts Rates." "Threatens" — correct, that is the name of the thing. Then "Some" tiptoes in and shrinks the hostage list back down to a rounding error. One word giveth, the next taketh away. * Here's what none of the three headlines found room for. First: the demand runs against the morning's own data. The jobs number was the reason markets moved toward a hike — the president answered it by demanding a cut, which is like responding to a clean bill of health by demanding chemotherapy. Second, and bigger: the target of the threat isn't China or Mexico. They're the hostages. The target is the Fed — an institution whose entire value rests on not taking orders from politicians. There's a standard phrase for leaning on your central bank; every one of these outlets has typed 'central-bank independence' a thousand times about other countries. In the headlines above, the institution actually being strong-armed appears only as the party that should hand over the ransom. * Wire discipline is a real thing and usually a virtue — Reuters' whole brand is not getting excited. But there's a line where calm stops being accuracy and starts being anesthesia. A president publicly conditioning trade with most of the planet on his central bank obeying him is not a 'says' story. The all-caps did the yelling. Somebody's headline was allowed to at least stand up straight.