President Donald Trump on June 25 said he was considering several people to lead the Federal Reserve amid his frustration with current Chair Jerome Powell.
While speaking to reporters at the NATO Summit on Wednesday, Trump said he has “three or four people” whom he’s considering as the next chair of the Federal Reserve after Powell’s term ends in May 2026.
“He goes out pretty soon, fortunately, because I think he’s terrible,” Trump said.
Some of the top contenders for the position reportedly include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, current Fed Governor Christopher Waller, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, and director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett.
Trump has routinely criticized Powell for not cutting interest rates, and has at times suggested he may remove the chair from his post. However, on June 12, Trump said, “I’m not going to fire him” while speaking at the White House.
On Wednesday, the president said lowering the interest rate would help lower the cost for the United States to service its federal debt.
“Instead of paying $900 billion, we don’t want to pay 900 just because he doesn’t want to lower the rate,” Trump said.
According to the latest projections by the Congressional Budget Office, the net interest will amount to $952 billion in 2025.
Hassett declined to confirm if he had spoken to Trump about Powell’s successor.
“I think the President will choose the person that he likes, and it’s not going to be Jay Powell,” Hassett said on Wednesday.
Historically, Fed chairs have largely avoided dismissal from presidents outside of cases of misconduct.
Earlier this year, Powell said the Fed is not in a hurry to lower interest rates because Trump’s tariffs may lead to a rebound in inflation after it cooled over the past year.
“Expectations of that level, and thus of the related economic effects, reached a peak in April and have since declined,” Powell told Congress. “Even so, increases in tariffs this year are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity.”
The anticipated impacts could take months to materialize, Powell said, and he believes that someone in the supply chain will eventually pay the higher levies and that “some of that is going to fall on the consumer.”
“We’re just waiting to see more data on that,” he said.
The current year-over-year inflation rate, as of May, is 2.4 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Trump said Powell could’ve cut rates first and can raise them later if prices go up.
“I said, ‘If there’s inflation in two years or three years or one year from now, you raise the rate and you take care of the inflation,’ among other things,” Trump said at the NATO Summit.
Powell, the 16th chair of the Federal Reserve, was first nominated to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 2012 by President Barack Obama. Trump nominated him to succeed former Chair Janet Yellen in 2017, and one year later, Powell was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate.
President Joe Biden opted to keep Powell as leader of the Fed at the end of his four-year term as chair in 2022.
While Federal Reserve chairs serve four-year terms, they can be subsequently renominated to their posts for additional terms if confirmed by the Senate.
Andrew Moran and Reuters contributed to this report.
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