Last year, when Donald Trump was running for president, he said the “big fat ugly bubble” in the U.S. stock market would pop if the Federal Reserve raised interest rates as needed after the new president took office.

Here’s what he said six months ago in the first debate with Hillary Clinton:

“And believe me, we are in a bubble right now. And the only thing that looks good is the stock market. But if you raise interest rates even a little bit that is going to come crashing down,” Trump said, before going on to say stocks are in “a big fat ugly bubble” and that Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen was being “political.”

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly criticized Yellen for keeping rates low as a favor to Barack Obama and the Democrats. He said she was being political by keeping rates low. But Trump also said he was a “low-interest-rate person.”

As on many issues, Trump came down firmly on both sides. He repeatedly called for higher rates — “because you have no choice” — while at the same time warning of the dire consequences of doing what he wanted: “Look, if interest rates were raised and if the dollar went up more, we’d be doing no business. We’re being killed by other countries devaluing their currencies.”

So, here we are, at the day of reckoning for the market, for the Fed and for Donald Trump. The Fed is almost certainly going to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point to 1% at the two-day meeting that begins today and concludes with a statement and a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

The rate hike is a foregone conclusion (probably, maybe, possibly, who knows?). The big questions that remain: Will raising rates really crash “the stock market that is so bloated” as Trump predicted in his very first speech as a candidate? And will Trump be able to refrain from criticizing Yellen and the Fed?

It could be the first economic crisis of Trump’s presidency. It will be a test of the market’s valuation, the economy’s resiliency, the Fed’s independence, and Donald Trump’s self-control.

Also read:Fed braces for Trump tweet storm

No president really likes it when the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. All things being equal, higher rates usually mean slower growth, fewer jobs created, and less investment in businesses and homes.

But this Fed rate hike is even more troublesome than usual. Because it’s Trump, who more than any other president has turned the performance of the stock market and the economy into a scorecard for his presidency.

Also read:Here’s what the Trump scoreboard says after a full month of the 45th presidency

Trump promised the forgotten men and women of Middle America that there would be a party, and now Yellen is taking away the punch bowl just as it’s getting started.

And because Trump has gone to war with anybody who dares to say what they think or do what’s right — whether it’s the CBO, the CIA, the NOAA, Mitt Romney, or the “lying media” — can we really imagine Trump maintaining his composure after the Fed raises rates? That would be as incredible as him staying silent when Rosie O’Donnell is hired to host “The Apprentice.”

This puts the Fed in a tough bind: Fed officials believe gradual normalization of interest rates is “appropriate” given the slow but steady growth in the economy, but raising rates risks the political independence of the central bank, because Trump will have the opportunity to replace most of the members of the board with more compliant governors.

In the meantime, Trump has found his perfect foil, the punching bag that won’t hit back, the scapegoat he can blame if, as expected, his bloated fantasies about being the best jobs president ever come crashing down in failure, smashed on the rocks of reality.