The list continues to grow of people in the running to be the next Federal Reserve chair, with former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh being the most recent name tossed around.
According to an article in The Wall Street Journal by Michael Bender, President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with Warsh on Thursday to discuss his potential nomination as the next Fed chairman.
From the article:
Mr. Warsh was a member of the president’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a group of business leaders that disbanded in August in protest over what they said was Mr. Trump’s failure to sufficiently condemn racism. He was also an economic adviser to 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who was considered the front-runner for the nomination before Mr. Trump’s political rise surprised the political establishment.
For background, the WSJ article noted that every president since Ronald Reagan has asked the standing Fed leader to stay in the job at the start of his presidency, which has served to underscore the central bank’s relative independence from politics on monetary policy.
The term of the current Fed chair, Janet Yellen, isn’t set to expire until January 2018, and she has said on multiple occasions that she intends to fulfill her term.
Once her term is complete, it’s not clear whether or not Trump would select her to serve another term, breaking the tradition set by past presidents.
In a previous interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump said that keeping Yellen as Fed chair is certainly a possibility, but added that Gary Cohn, who currently serves as the White House National Economic Council Director, is also a possibility to lead the Fed.
But this changed at the start of September when it came out that Cohn may no longer be on Trump’s Fed chair shortlist.
Cohn, who currently serves as the White House National Economic Council Director, reportedly fell out of Trump’s favor in the wake of Cohn criticizing Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
A final decision is largely expected in the next two or three weeks.
