Kevin Hassett <\/p>\n
(Bloomberg) — White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett is seen by advisers and allies of President Donald Trump as the frontrunner to be the next Federal Reserve chair, according to people familiar with the matter, as the search for a new central bank leader enters its final weeks.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With Hassett, Trump would have a close ally whom the president knows well and trusts installed at the independent central bank, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Hassett is seen as someone who would bring the president\u2019s approach to interest-rate cutting to the Fed, which Trump has long wanted to control, some of the people said.<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg<\/p>\n
Still, Trump is known to make surprise personnel and policy decisions, meaning a nomination is not final until it\u2019s made public, they said.<\/p>\n
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in a statement said, \u201cnobody actually knows what President Trump will do until he does it. Stay tuned!\u201d<\/p>\n
Hassett would say \u201cyes\u201d if asked to be Fed Chair, he said in an interview on Fox News. \u201cI want to serve my country and I want to serve my president. But you know, we\u2019ll see how it goes. There are a lot of great candidates,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kevin HassettPhotographer: Al Drago\/Bloomberg <\/p>\n
Fed chair and governor picks are historically the most direct way a president can influence the central bank. Trump nominated current Chair Jerome Powell during his first term. He came to regret the decision when Powell didn\u2019t push for lower interest rates at the pace Trump wanted.<\/p>\n
Hassett is seen as closely aligned with Trump\u2019s view on the economy, including that interest rates need to be lowered further. He told Fox News on Nov. 20 that he would \u201cbe cutting rates right now\u201d if he were the chair of the Fed because \u201cthe data suggests that we should.\u201d Hassett has also criticized the central bank for losing control of inflation in the wake of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
Treasuries rallied, pushing the 10-year yield below 4% for the first time in a month on news that Hassett is a frontrunner for the post.<\/p>\n
The Fed has repeatedly served as a punching bag for Trump, with the president lambasting Powell for being \u201ctoo late\u201d to cut borrowing costs and publicly musing about firing him. The president has also assailed renovations on the central bank\u2019s campus and the White House is currently engaged in litigation over Trump\u2019s attempted dismissal of Fed Governor Lisa Cook.<\/p>\n
Story Continues <\/p>\n
That\u2019s put pressure on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is leading the selection process for the next Fed chair, to carefully balance candidates who are in favor of slashing borrowing costs and have the trust of both the president and financial markets.<\/p>\n
After being on hold for most of 2025, the Fed began lowering interest rates this fall, cutting its benchmark rate by 25 basis points in both September and October. But officials have grown increasingly divided over the outlook for inflation and the labor market, likely making a cut at their next meeting in December a close call.<\/p>\n
WATCH: White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett is seen as the frontrunner to be the next Federal Reserve chair, according to people familiar with the matter. Enda Curran has more.Source: Bloomberg <\/p>\n
Bessent told CNBC on Tuesday there\u2019s a good chance Trump could announce his Fed chair selection within the next month, before the Dec. 25 Christmas holiday.<\/p>\n
Trump himself has teased that he is close to making a selection. Trump on Nov. 18 said, \u201cI think I already know my choice,\u201d without revealing whom he would select as chair. In September, Trump said that Hassett, along with ex-Fed official Kevin Warsh and current central bank governor Christopher Waller, were the top three candidates.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump saw in the first term how important it was to have people who understand his direction and priorities, especially in key positions like FBI director and Federal Reserve chair,\u201d said Sean Spicer, who served as White House press secretary in Trump\u2019s first term. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine him appointing someone he doesn\u2019t have a strong personal relationship with to succeed Jerome Powell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Interview Process<\/p>\n
Since the summer, Bessent has run the selection process to replace Powell, interviewing nearly a dozen candidates that have now been whittled down to five contenders: Hassett, Warsh, Waller, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman and BlackRock Inc.\u2019s Rick Rieder.<\/p>\n
Bessent said interviews with those candidates will end this week. A smaller subset of finalists will soon meet with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Vice President JD Vance. The Fed pick will also need to be confirmed by the Senate.<\/p>\n
Earlier: Bessent Calls for Simplified Fed as He Ends Candidate Interviews<\/p>\n
The coalescing around Hassett comes as Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Powell. Trump last week called the Fed chair \u201cgrossly incompetent,\u201d saying he would love to fire Powell if it weren\u2019t for people like Bessent urging him to hold off. He went on to say, in a joking tone, that if Bessent doesn\u2019t help secure lower interest rates, he\u2019d also dismiss the Treasury chief.<\/p>\n
Despite the quip, Bessent remains in good standing with Trump, who has repeatedly said that he\u2019s considered the Treasury chief as a contender to serve as Fed chair. Bessent says he likes his job at Treasury and doesn\u2019t want to lead the central bank.<\/p>\n
Neil Dutta of Renaissance Macro Research predicted that Hassett could have trouble corralling other members of the Fed\u2019s interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee to support his views.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think Hassett will have an easy go of things next year if he\u2019s chair,\u201d he said. \u201cHe also looks like the one most easily bullied by Trump. Bessent less so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next chair is likely to be named to a 14-year Fed governor term that opens on Feb. 1. The term that expires at that time is currently held by Stephen Miran, who is on unpaid leave from the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Powell\u2019s term as chair of the central bank ends in May 2026, though he could remain on the board for two more years as a governor.<\/p>\n
Powell has not said whether he intends to step down from the board when his term as chair expires. If he did, that would provide the administration with another vacancy to fill next year.<\/p>\n
–With assistance from Amara Omeokwe, Enda Curran and Malcolm Scott.<\/p>\n
(Updates with comment from Hassett on Fox News in fifth paragraph.)<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p>\n
\u00a92025 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Hassett (Bloomberg) — White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett is seen by advisers and allies…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":405089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3638,64,22703,69,1597,123989,267,142,34523,18244,67,132,68,5223],"class_list":{"0":"post-405088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-bloomberg","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-central-bank","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-federal-reserve","13":"tag-federal-reserve-chair","14":"tag-interest-rates","15":"tag-jerome-powell","16":"tag-kevin-hassett","17":"tag-scott-bessent","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-white-house"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115613958453069178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405088","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=405088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}