President Donald Trump announces Kevin Warsh as his choice for new Federal Reserve chairman in an article in Truth Social.
President Donald Trump announced Friday that it was nominating Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell as chairman of the Federal Reserve, ending months of speculation over the choice of candidate to head the central bank.
“I have known Kevin for a long time and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairs, perhaps the best,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “On top of everything else, he’s central casting and he’ll never let you down. Congratulations Kevin!”
Before taking one of the most powerful positions in the United States the development of economic policy, Warsh still needs to be confirmed by the Senate.
Kevin Warsh, former governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, during the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank at IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, April 25, 2025. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
What you need to know about Kevin Warsh:
Warsh, born in 1970, earned a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University and then a law degree from Harvard University. Like Powell, Warsh does not have a formal degree in economics (Powell earned a bachelor’s degree in politics from Princeton University and a law degree from Georgetown).
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Warsh worked in the private sector at JPMorgan before joining President George W. Bush’s administration in 2002, honing his credentials in Republican political circles until Bush appointed him to the Fed’s Board of Governors in 2006. At age 35, he became the youngest Fed governor in history.
Since leaving the Fed in 2011, Warsh has served as the Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Economics at the Hoover Institution and as a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He also serves on the board of directors of UPS and is a director of the Group of Thirty and the Congressional Budget Office’s Group of Economic Advisers.
In 2017, Trump considered replacing Janet Yellen as Fed chair. The president instead I chose Powell like his successor. Warsh was also in the running for Treasury secretary last fall before Trump nominated hedge fund manager Scott Bessent.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell arrives at the U.S. Federal Reserve in Washington on January 13, 2026. (Nathan Howard/Reuters / Reuters)
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Perhaps no finalist for Fed chair has been as critical of Powell as Warsh. He has advocated sweeping changes in the Fed’s policy approach, calling the central bank’s economic models outdated and opaque while opposing its balance sheet buildup.
Although he has built a reputation as one of the The main inflation of the Fed “Hawks” during his tenure on the Board of Governors, Warsh said as recently as last fall that the Fed had the option to ease borrowing costs.
“Prices can be lower,” Warsh said on Fox News’ “Special Report” in October, “but that will require a regime change at the Fed.”
Although he has echoed Trump’s calls for Powell to lower interest rates throughout his bid for the central bank’s top job, Warsh has been significantly less specific about what his preferred path on monetary policy would be. Members of the Senate Banking Committee will likely press Warsh on these views during his confirmation hearing before the panel.
Former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh speaks at the American Economic Association (AEA) annual conference in Chicago, Illinois, January 6, 2017. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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As the Fed grapples with how to set rates and adapt to Trump’s tariffs, Warsh — once a critic of protectionist trade policies — said last summer that the tariffs would not cause lasting inflation.
Following last spring’s tariff announcements, inflation has trended higher over the year and remains closer to 3% than the Fed’s 2% target, although policymakers expect it to move closer to the target during 2026, barring further tariff announcements. High inflation as well as a slowdown in the labor market have complicated the prospects for rate cuts and this dynamic could persist until the end of this year.
Yet any notion that Warsh would take a dovish approach to political management would contrast with his idea. record at the Fed, where he criticized the central bank’s plan to continue buying Treasuries while keeping interest rates low for an extended period as the job market languished during the 2008 housing crisis.
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Warsh’s ties to Wall Street, which would remain strong today, allowed him to serve as the Fed’s primary liaison to the banking industry during this period.
