{"id":122006,"date":"2025-08-05T22:26:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/122006\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T22:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T22:26:13","slug":"trump-narrows-fed-chair-candidates-excludes-scott-bessent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/122006\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump narrows Fed chair candidates, excludes Scott Bessent"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he\u2019s whittled down his list of potential Federal Reserve chair candidates to four as he considers a successor to Jerome Powell<\/a> \u2014 a choice that could reset the path of the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n

Asked on CNBC\u2019s \u201cSquawk Box\u201d for a future replacement for Powell, Trump named Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, and Kevin Warsh, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Kevin and Kevin, both Kevins, are very good,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

He said two other people were also under consideration, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is not among them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Scott, but he wants to stay where he is,\u201d Trump said. He did not name his other two top candidates but used the opportunity to disparage Powell, whom he has dubbed \u201ctoo late\u201d in cutting interest rates.<\/p>\n

The news that Trump plans to make a decision on the Fed chair \u201csoon\u201d comes as the Republican president has been highly critical of Powell, whose term ends in May 2026. Trump recently floated having the Fed\u2019s board of governors take full control<\/a> of the U.S. central bank from Powell, whom he has relentlessly pressured to cut short-term interest rates in ways that raise questions about whether the Fed can remain free from White House politicking.<\/p>\n

Trump has openly mused about whether to remove Powell before his tenure as chair ends, but he\u2019s held off on dismissing the Fed chair after a recent Supreme Court ruling suggested he could only do so for cause rather than out of policy disagreements. The president has put pressure on Powell by claiming he mismanaged the Fed\u2019s $2.5 billion renovation project<\/a>, but he\u2019s also said that he\u2019s \u201chighly unlikely\u201d<\/a> to fire Powell.<\/p>\n

One of the Fed\u2019s governors, Adriana Kugler, made a surprise announcement<\/a> last Friday that she would be stepping away from her role. That created an opening for Trump, who called her departure \u201ca pleasant surprise,\u201d to name a new Fed governor. Trump told CNBC it\u2019s \u201ca possibility\u201d that his pick to replace Kugler could also be his choice to replace Powell.<\/p>\n

Trump told reporters that he plans to name his pick to join the Fed\u2019s board of governors soon, though he is deciding whether he\u2019ll nominate someone to permanently join the board and possibly succeed Powell or simply serve out the remaining months of Kugler\u2019s term.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be making that decision before the end of the week,\u201d Trump said later Tuesday when asked about his Fed governor pick.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to know about the two known candidates: <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Director<\/p>\n

Director of the White House National Economic Council Kevin Hassett does a television interview at the White House, Monday, Aug. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/p>\n

Director of the White House National Economic Council Kevin Hassett does a television interview at the White House, Monday, Aug. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/p>\n

Read More<\/p>\n

Kevin Hassett <\/p>\n

Hassett<\/a>, director of the White House National Economic Council, has been supportive of the president\u2019s agenda \u2014 from his advocacy for income tax cuts and tariffs to his support of the recent firing<\/a> of BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Hassett served in the first Trump administration as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. He has a doctoral degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and worked at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute before joining the Trump White House in 2017. <\/p>\n

As part of Hassett\u2019s farewell announcement in 2019, Trump called him a \u201ctrue friend\u201d who did a \u201cgreat job.\u201d Hassett became a fellow at the Hoover Institution, which is located at Stanford University. He later returned to the administration to help deal with the pandemic.<\/p>\n

On CNBC on Monday, Hassett said \u201call over the U.S. government, there have been people who have been resisting Trump everywhere they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kevin Warsh<\/p>\n

A former Fed governor who stepped down in 2011, Warsh is currently a fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has been supportive of cutting interest rates<\/a>, a key goal of Trump\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president\u2019s right to be frustrated with Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve,\u201d Warsh said on Fox News\u2019 \u201cSunday Morning Futures\u201d last month.<\/p>\n

Warsh has been increasingly critical of Powell\u2019s Federal Reserve and in July, on CNBC, called for sweeping changes on how the Fed conducts business as well as a new Treasury-Fed accord \u201clike we did in 1951, after another period where we built up our nation\u2019s debt and we were stuck with a central bank that was working at cross purposes with the Treasury.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Fed\u2019s \u201chesitancy to cut rates, I think, is actually quite a mark against them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe specter of the miss they made on inflation\u201d after the pandemic, he said, \u201cit has stuck with them. So one of the reasons why the president, I think, is right to be pushing the Fed publicly is we need regime change in the conduct of policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very highly thought of,\u201d Trump said in June when asked directly about Warsh. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Christopher Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he\u2019s whittled down his list of potential Federal Reserve…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":122007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75620,64,84,69,73367,455,57,2055,142,34523,75621,80,18244,67,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-122006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-adriana-kugler","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-district-of-columbia","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-erika-mcentarfer","13":"tag-federal-reserve-system","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-government-and-politics","16":"tag-jerome-powell","17":"tag-kevin-hassett","18":"tag-kevin-warsh","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-scott-bessent","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114978513528410827","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}