Kevin Warsh is emerging as a strong contender to be U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick for the position of Chairman of the US Federal Reserve. Current Chair Jerome Powell’s term ends in 2026, and the Trump administration is likely to finalize a replacement soon. Trump initially hinted at firing Powell, but later retracted his statement, stating that Powell had been too late in cutting rates.

In 2017, President Trump appointed Jerome Powell as the Federal Reserve’s head, denying Janet Yellen a second term, expressing confidence in Powell’s leadership and expertise to manage the world’s largest economy.

Now, Trump is reportedly in discussions with Warsh, a former member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, about running the Fed.

Kevin M. Warsh was sworn in as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on February 24, 2006. He left the Board on March 31, 2011.

Born on 13 April 1970 in Albany, New York, Warsh studied public policy at Stanford University, focusing on economics and statistics. He later earned a law degree from Harvard Law School, where he studied law, economics, and regulatory policy. He also studied market economics and debt capital markets at Harvard Business School and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1995, Warsh joined Morgan Stanley & Co.’s mergers and acquisitions department, where he advised various companies in various industries, structured capital markets transactions, and facilitated fixed income and equity financing.

In 2002, Warsh left Morgan Stanley & Co. to join President George W. Bush’s administration. He served as special assistant for economic policy and executive secretary at the National Economic Council. Warsh advised the president on US economic issues, including capital market fund flows, securities, banking, and insurance. He was also a member of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets.

In 2006, President Bush nominated Warsh to the Board of Governors, where he served as the Board’s representative to the G-20 and emissary to Asian emerging economies.

Warsh, during his tenure on the Board, delivered several notable speeches, including “The End of History?”, “The Federal Funds Rate in Extraordinary Times,” and “Rejecting the Requiem.”

Here’s what Warsh said on May 21, 2008, on inflation and the Fed funds rate – The Federal Reserve had aggressively cut the federal funds rate by 3.25% in nine months, but Warsh warned against over-reliance on this tool, advocating for broader measures to address financial market disruptions. He stresses humility in recognizing the limits of monetary policy knowledge amidst economic uncertainty.

Kevin Warsh On Inflation

Warsh recently criticized the Fed for not making a “cruel choice” between stable prices and full employment, citing the common belief that reducing inflation harms the job market.

“What it means is, we don’t have to push the unemployment rate up to get the inflation rate to fall,” Warsh said on the sidelines of the conference, reports Reuters.

“At the Fed, when they talk about how we get inflation down, what they really mean is, how do we get the unemployment rate up … we need to throw people out of work to get the inflation rate to come down, which is nonsense. But that’s embedded in economic thinking, including at the Fed.”

Warsh suggested that if the printing press were quiet, lower policy rates could be achieved, a suggestion Trump has repeatedly urged Fed Chair Jerome Powell to deliver.