Trump administration narrows list of potential Federal Reserve chairs to 5

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday confirmed the names of five candidates to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the powerful Federal Reserve next year.

On an Air Force One flight to Asia with President Donald Trump, Bessent said he would engage in a second round of interviews in the coming weeks and present a “good slate” of candidates to Trump “right after Thanksgiving.” Trump said he expected to decide on Powell’s replacement by the end of this year.

The five people under consideration are: Federal Reserve governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman; former Fed governor Kevin Warsh; White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett; and Rick Rieder, senior managing director at asset manager BlackRock.

The names suggest that no matter who is picked, there will likely be big changes coming to the Federal Reserve next year. Bessent, who is leading the search for Powell’s replacement, last month published extensive criticisms of the Fed and some of the policies it has pursued from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 to the pandemic.

Trump on Monday, meanwhile, repeated his long-standing attacks on Powell, charging that he has been too slow to cut interest rates.

“We have a person that’s not at all smart right now,” Trump said, referring to Powell. “He should have been much lower, much sooner.” The Fed is expected to lower its key rate Wednesday for the second time this year.

Trump’s goal of selecting a new chair by the end of this year could reflect some of the tricky elements surrounding Powell’s status. His term as chair ends next May, but he could remain on the Fed’s board as one of seven governors until January 2028, an unusual but not entirely unprecedented step. Such a move would deprive Trump of an opportunity to nominate another governor for several years.

Still, current governor Stephen Miran was appointed by Trump Sept. 16 to finish an unexpired term that ends next Jan. 31. Trump could nominate his candidate to replace Powell for that seat, and then elevate that person to chair in May after Powell steps down.

Hassett is currently the chair of the National Economic Council at the White House and was also a top Trump adviser in the president’s first term, and a frequent defender of the administration’s policies on television. His longtime loyalty to the president could give him an edge, some Fed watchers say.

Warsh is a former economic advisor in the George W. Bush administration and was appointed to the Fed’s governing board in 2006 at age 35, making him the youngest Fed governor in history. He left the board in 2011. Warsh is now a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Waller was appointed to the Fed by Trump in 2020, and quickly established himself as an independent voice. He began pushing for rate cuts in July and dissented at that meeting in favor of a quarter-point cut, when the Fed decided to leave its key rate unchanged. But he voted to reduce rates just a quarter-point in September, along with 10 other Fed officials, while Miran dissented in favor of a half-point.

Michelle Bowman is the Fed’s vice chair of supervision, making her the nation’s top banking regulator. She was appointed by Trump in 2018, and before that was Kansas’ state bank commissioner. Bowman also dissented in favor a rate cut in July, then voted with her colleagues last month for a quarter-point reduction.

Rieder has the most financial markets experience of any of the candidates and has worked for Wall Street firms since 1987. Rieder joined BlackRock in 2009. His focus is in fixed income and he oversees the management of roughly $2.4 trillion in assets.

Bessent has set out a wide-ranging critique of the Fed while interviewing for Powell’s replacement. In particular, he has criticized the central bank for continuing unconventional policies, such as purchasing Treasury bonds in order to lower longer-term interest rates, long after after such steps were justified, in his view, by emergency conditions.

“It is essential the Fed commit to scaling back its distortionary impact on markets,” Bessent wrote. “It also likely requires an honest, independent, and nonpartisan review of the entire institution and all of its activities.”

Bessent’s criticisms aren’t entirely new, but they have gained greater traction in the wake of the 2021-22 inflation surge. The Fed is mandated by Congress to seek stable prices as well as maximum employment.

Bessent’s critiques have also inevitably been tangled up with Trump’s insistent calls for lower interest rates, which have threatened the Fed’s independence from day-to-day politics. Trump has also taken the unprecedented step of trying to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, a Biden appointee, to open another seat on the board for him to fill.

Cook has sued to keep her seat and the Supreme Court has allowed Cook to remain on the board while it considers the case.

Trump’s attacks on the central bank have left some longtime Fed critics skeptical of the Trump administration’s approach.

Peter Conti-Brown, a Fed historian and professor of financial regulation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, cautioned against placing “loyalists” on the Fed “who are there to push the president’s narrative.”

“Those are the ones that we want as his advisers and spokespeople and his lawyers, not his central bankers,” he said.

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Christopher Rugaber, The Associated Press

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