President Donald Trump, who has for months expressed deep displeasure with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, has found Powell’s potential replacement.
Trump said Friday he will nominate former Federal Reserve official Kevin Warsh to be the next chair of the Fed, replacing Powell when his term ends in May. While Trump picked Powell to lead the Fed in 2017, he has consistently assailed him for not cutting interest rates quickly enough.
“I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best,” Trump posted on his Truth Social site. “On top of everything else, he is ‘central casting,’ and he will never let you down.”
The appointment needs Senate confirmation and would return Warsh to the Fed board of governors. He was a member of the board from 2006 to 2011, the youngest governor in history when he was appointed at age 35, according to a report from The Associated Press. Warsh is currently a fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
According to the AP report, Warsh during his time as governor objected to some of the low-interest rate policies that the Fed pursued during and after the 2008-09 Great Recession. He also often expressed concern at that time that inflation would soon accelerate, even though it remained at rock-bottom levels for many years after that recession ended.
But more recently, however, in speeches and opinion columns, Warsh has said he supports lower rates.
Prior to serving on the Fed’s board in 2006, Warsh was an economic aide in George W. Bush’s Republican administration and was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley.
