Yes, but almost always indirectly, through inflation, growth, and how much debt the government issues. Mortgage rates track the bond market (the 10-year Treasury and mortgage-backed securities), and bonds price in three things: inflation expectations, the pace of economic growth, and the volume of government debt being issued. A political or policy event moves rates only to the extent it changes one of those. Tariffs matter if markets read them as inflationary. Elections and legislation matter mostly through the deficit, because heavy government borrowing means more Treasury supply, which pushes yields and mortgage rates up. Deficit spending is one of the bigger forces keeping rates above where inflation alone would put them. The Fed is the most misunderstood piece. The Fed sets the overnight rate banks charge each other, while the 30-year mortgage prices off the long end of the bond market. A Fed leadership change or a rate cut can shift expectations, but long-term rates often move ahead of the Fed and sometimes opposite to a cut. The clearest exception in recent memory was the government's bond-buying (QE), which purchased mortgage bonds directly and pushed rates to historic lows. That was policy moving rates head-on, and it also shows how unpredictable these interventions can be. So watch the inflation and deficit trajectory rather than the political theater, and follow the day-to-day on the Mortgage News Daily rate table, right here on our site. Nobody can promise where rates go. If you find yourself trying to time a purchase around a headline, that is our cue to run your real numbers on the free Roadmap conversation, so a move in either direction does not catch you flat.