(Bloomberg) - President Donald Trump’s search for a new Federal Reserve chair is becoming a hunt for an elusive unicorn candidate as blowback from his attacks on the central bank complicates the decision.
Trump is trying to check several boxes in a replacement for the current chair, Jerome Powell: He wants a loyalist who will pursue steep interest-rate cuts, commands credibility both with Wall Street and the president’s MAGA base, and has a shot at Senate confirmation — all with the telegenic, central-casting factor that Trump seeks.
The already-delicate balancing act has been made more challenging by a Department of Justice probe into Powell that has prompted a key Republican senator to block all of Trump’s Fed picks, creating tensions that Trump’s Greenland threats may further inflame. And a cold truth is setting in: none of the top candidates may fully check every box.
“It won’t be easy to find a pick that both President Trump and bond markets like, unless he fundamentally reconsiders what he’s looking for,” said Tobin Marcus, head of US policy and politics at Wolfe Research.
Trump’s shortlist includes National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, BlackRock executive Rick Rieder, current Fed Governor Christopher Waller and a former governor, Kevin Warsh. Trump is somewhat frustrated by his choices, according to people familiar with the matter.
The president has complained privately and publicly about the advice he got last time around, in 2017, when then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin encouraged him to pick Powell.
Hassett was widely seen as the frontrunner for the job until this past week, when Trump said he may prefer to keep him at the White House. Rieder’s candidacy, meanwhile, is gaining late momentum, in part because he may be easier to confirm in the Senate, though the divestments required to take the job could complicate it.
But all four have potential Achilles heels. Rieder’s post at BlackRock exposes him to potential MAGA criticism of “globalist” bankers, while Hassett’s White House role has fueled concerns about the central bank’s independence under his potential leadership. Waller’s reputation as a Fed insider raises questions about his appetite for the reform Trump is seeking, and Warsh does not have a dovish track record on monetary policy — nor is he a recognizable MAGA personality.
Search Process
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — who has led the search process — has been careful to not publicly put his thumb on the scale.
Trump has “been very deliberate” in asking “exactly the questions that I think you and I and the markets would want asked,” Bessent told Larry Kudlow Friday on the Fox Business Network.
“Who can bring the board along with them? Who has the gravitas?” Bessent said. “Who is going to have an open, Greenspan-like mind that we could be going through a productivity boom like we did in the ’90s, and not just throw the brakes on things because they’re alarmed by a high GDP number?”
White House Spokesman Kush Desai in a statement said that “until an announcement is made by President Trump, any reporting about the Federal Reserve Chairman nominations process is pointless speculation.” The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Another X-factor is Powell himself. The Fed chair has yet to say whether he will depart in May when his leadership term expires, as is customary, or stay to serve out some or all of his remaining term on the Board of Governors, which extends to 2028.
Powell seized on the DOJ subpoena to issue an extraordinary public statement earlier this month, declaring it a “pretext” in Trump’s push for lower rates. Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican who sits on the powerful Senate Banking Committee, said he would not vote to advance any of Trump’s central bank nominations until the matter is resolved.
Investors have taken the turmoil in stride, betting the administration won’t go so far as to indict Powell over congressional testimony he gave in 2025 about a Fed building renovation project. Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia who issued the subpoenas, said in a sign of possible de-escalation that she was only seeking documentation from the Fed.
But the president’s tumultuous weekend, in which he announced a barrage of new tariffs on close European allies over their resistance to his plan to acquire Greenland from a fellow NATO member, serves as a reminder that Trump routinely barrels ahead on measures and threats that might once have seemed fanciful.
The timing of Trump’s announcement on his selection for Fed chair remains unclear. The president told reporters on Monday night in Florida that he knows who he wants and would “announce it sometime,” while Bessent told reporters in Davos on Tuesday that the decision would come “maybe as early as next week.” Trump is set to depart for the gathering in Switzerland on Tuesday evening.
By Josh Wingrove, Saleha Mohsin and Joshua Green
