Who will replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell? A look at the 5 finalists.

While President Trump has a list of five finalists for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, he said last week that he thinks he knows who he’ll pick.

“I think I already know my choice,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office regarding who will replace outgoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May. “I’d love to get the guy currently in there out right now, but people are holding me back.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been leading the interview process and said last week that the president will be sitting down with the candidates soon.

The five candidates on the shortlist are Fed governors Chris Waller and Michelle Bowman, former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, NEC Director Kevin Hassett, and BlackRock head of fixed income Rick Rieder.

The president reiterated twice last week that he’s still partial to Bessent, who again said he does not want the job.

Former senior Trump economic adviser Steve Moore said he views the race for the next Fed chair as a three-person contest between Warsh, Hassett, and Bessent — even though Bessent is not officially in the running.

“He’s not going to say no to the president if the president wants him to do it,” Moore said.

But Hassett is seen by advisers and allies of Trump as the frontrunner to replace Powell, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

In terms of what President Trump’s pick would mean for the central bank, Moore said, “The question would be, will it be someone who is going to be an inflation fighter and someone who defends the dollar?”

Those are the two most critical tasks for the chair, he said: returning inflation to the Fed’s target of 2% and keeping it there, and defending the dollar, which has been falling.

TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg thinks Warsh has the edge, though Hassett is a strong possibility as well, given that he has more frequent contact with the president as an adviser. Waller could emerge as a compromise candidate, Seiberg added.

“We would not describe any of the three leading contenders as traditional doves when it comes to monetary policy,” said Seiberg. “True that they have called for rate cuts in recent months, consistent with the president’s demands. Yet we see all as equally focused on price stability. It is why we believe all three would risk a confrontation with Trump if inflation became a top concern.”

Here’s a closer look at the contenders:

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has a close relationship with Trump, advising the president on economic policy. He also served in the first Trump administration.

Hassett told Yahoo Finance recently that he puts a high priority on Fed independence, sound money policies, and getting interest rates aligned with economic conditions. He criticized the Fed for assuming a spike in inflation around the pandemic and Biden-era stimulus checks was temporary, calling those higher prices transitory. He singled out that the Fed started raising rates when tax cuts were passed during Trump’s first term, then cut rates right before the 2024 presidential election.

“I think they’ve made some bad policy decisions, and they’ve made policy decisions that look to me to be at times partisan,” said Hassett.

Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett speaks to reporters outside the White House on Nov. 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) · Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images

“I think that there’s a lot of house-cleaning needs to happen at the Federal Reserve, and I’m confident that anyone the president chooses will get to work and try to fix it and make the Fed independent again.”

Hassett has said he agrees with Trump that rates could be “a lot lower,” and that it would be a mistake to pause cutting rates in December because the government shutdown dented economic growth in the fourth quarter, and the degree of the impact is unclear.

He’s said he would support a 50 basis point cut in December, double the 25 basis point moves in the past two policy meetings.

Read more: How the Fed rate decision affects your bank accounts, loans, credit cards, and investments

Hassett has also said that he would accept the Fed chair post if it were offered to him.

The pro argument for Waller is that he is already on the Fed board as a governor, and his policy views are in line with the president’s. Waller was the first central bank policymaker to call for lower rates in July following the Fed’s meeting in June.

He supports cutting interest rates next month because he says he’s more worried about the job market weakening than inflation accelerating. He said the drop in payroll growth is being driven by both weaker demand for workers and weaker supply of workers due to lower immigration, but weaker demand is the greater force. Waller noted that he doesn’t see evidence of an acceleration in wage growth, an increase in job openings, or a rise in the quits rate that would lead him to believe weaker payroll growth is a result of fewer workers in the job market.

Christopher Waller, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, listens during a Fed Listens event on March 22, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Al Drago/Getty Images) · Al Drago via Getty Images

On inflation, Waller said data through September continued to show relatively small effects from tariffs, supporting his hypothesis that tariffs are having a one-off effect of raising prices and are not a persistent source of inflation. Excluding tariffs, Waller believes inflation is close to the FOMC’s 2% inflation goal.

Read more: How jobs, inflation, and the Fed are all related

Waller was appointed to the Fed by Trump during his first term. Before, he served as director of research at the St. Louis Fed from 2009 to December 2020.

Waller told the Fox Business Network he spoke with Secretary Bessent about the Fed chair position about 10 days ago.

“We had a nice, a great, meeting,” Waller said. “I think they are looking for someone who has merit, experience, and knows what they are doing in the job, and I think I fit that.”

Another current member of the Fed, Bowman was appointed by Trump during his first term and was elevated earlier this year to vice chair of supervision at the central bank. She, too, favors lower rates, given concerns about what she calls growing “fragility” in the job market. She penciled in three rate cuts this year and is expected to support a cut next month.

The former Kansas Banking commissioner, Bowman staunchly opposed former Vice Chair of Supervision Michael Barr’s plan, known as Basel III, to significantly ratchet up capital requirements on banks as much as 20%. She argued that the plan would significantly harm the economy and is expected to roll out a new proposal early next year. She has advocated for regulations tailored to banks based on their risk profile and size.

Michelle Bowman, Vice Chair for Supervision of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, takes a seat for an open meeting of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve, in Washington, June 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File) · ASSOCIATED PRESS

Her views align with other Trump-appointed financial regulators and the administration. This year, Bowman has already announced a slew of changes, including modifications to the Fed’s supervisory rating framework for large banks. She also announced plans to reorganize the Fed’s supervision and regulation division and shrink the unit’s staff by roughly 30% as she looks to refocus supervision on the safety and soundness of material financial risks.

Bowman has also spearheaded a proposal to publish the models and methodologies the central bank uses every year to stress-test whether the nation’s largest banks could withstand a severe recession in an effort to increase transparency of the tests — something banks are cheering.

Kevin Warsh

There was a period earlier this year when Warsh was viewed as the favorite to take over Powell’s job.

He already has experience navigating inside the central bank. He served as Fed governor from 2006 until 2011 and became former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke’s liaison to Wall Street during the chaos of the 2008 financial crisis.

He is also a known figure to Trump, who interviewed him for the Fed chair post eight years ago before selecting Powell.

Warsh has been highly critical of the Fed, recently writing in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that the Fed should “discard its forecast of stagflation” and arguing that it is overlooking that AI will be a “significant” force that will boost productivity and push down inflation.

Kevin Warsh, center, with Julia Hartz, CEO of Eventbrite, and Kevin Hartz, former CEO of Xoom, after the morning session at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 10, 2024, in Sun Valley, Idaho. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) · Kevork Djansezian via Getty Images

He criticized Powell for making “unwise choices,” such as missing the persistence of post-pandemic inflation. Warsh rejects the belief that inflation is caused when the economy grows too fast and workers get paid too much. Rather, he argues inflation is caused when the government spends too much and prints too much money.

Warsh has also said that he thinks the Fed should view tariffs as one-off price changes, a view echoed by the White House and many members of the Fed now.

Rick Rieder

Rieder is a bond guy. He is BlackRock’s head of fixed income, overseeing $2.4 trillion in assets. He’s served as vice chairman and member of the Borrowing Committee for the US Treasury, as well as a member of the Fed’s Investment Advisory Committee on Financial Markets.

BlackRock Global Chief Investment Officer of Fixed Income Rick Rieder speaks onstage at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit on Oct. 25, 2017, in New York City. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Yahoo) · Cindy Ord via Getty Images

Rieder thinks the Fed can and should cut rates in December. In an interview with Yahoo Finance recently, he acknowledged that inflation is running higher than the Fed’s target but said, “I have a stronger view that I think labor is a tricky thing from here, and I think there is significant displacement in labor that we’re going to see over the next couple of years.”

Excluding jobs created in healthcare, Rieder thinks job growth during the spring and summer months was negative.

“I think that is something that is going to be persistent,” he said. “Hopefully, the economy continues to be resilient, which I think it will … the economy’s in good shape, companies are in great shape, labor not so much.”

Wilmer Stith, senior bond fund manager for Wilmington Trust, predicts Trump will nominate someone with an inclination to have lower rates, which will mean Wall Street can expect a more dovish central bank next year.

Alan Blinder, Princeton professor and former vice chairman of the Fed, said what President Trump cares most about is whether his candidate is loyal to him.

“That is about the worst criterion for a Fed chairman I can think of,” said Blinder.

Blinder says he worries about the independence of the Fed and inflation.

“The financial markets overreact to virtually everything,” Blinder told Yahoo Finance. “This is one thing I think they’re underreacting to. I don’t think they’re placing enough weight and importance on the likelihood of the loss of central bank independence in the United States.”

Jennifer Schonberger is a veteran financial journalist covering markets, the economy, and investing. At Yahoo Finance she covers the Federal Reserve, Congress, the White House, the Treasury, the SEC, the economy, cryptocurrencies, and the intersection of Washington policy with finance. Follow her on X @Jenniferisms.

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