Trump’s Fed shortlist is officially down to 5 people

President Donald Trump’s shortlist to lead the Federal Reserve includes National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, Fed Gov. Christopher Waller, and former Fed Gov. Kevin Warsh

Reuters

President Donald Trump has narrowed down his list of potential next Fed chairs.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that there are five finalists.
Prediction markets continue to favor Kevin Hassett, a Trump economic advisor.

President Donald Trump has a list of five finalists to replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Trump told reporters over the weekend that he wants to make a decision “by the end of the year or early next year.”

“We want to get ‘Too Late’ out as soon as possible,” Trump said aboard Air Force One, using his derisive nickname for Powell.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has been leading the search, said that he plans on doing a second round of interviews with the finalists.

“We hope to present a good slate to the president right after Thanksgiving,” Bessent told reporters, per the White House press pool.

Powell’s term expires next May, but hasn’t stopped the White House from aggressively searching for his replacement.

Here are the five finalists.

Kevin Hassett

Before joining Trump’s orbit, Hassett advised a succession of Republican presidential nominees on economic policy, including George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.

As of late October, Hassett is the favorite on PolyMarket and Kalshi, two of the leading prediction markets. Hassett is a much more commanding favorite on Kalshi.

During Trump’s first term, Hassett served as director of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors. He returned to the White House during the COVID-19 pandemic and was severely criticized for publishing a model showing coronavirus deaths hitting zero by May 15, 2020.

In October 1999, Hassett cowrote with journalist Jason Glassman “Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market.” Some economists have heavily criticized the book, largely because the index took more than 22 years to reach that threshold.

Christopher Waller

Fed Gov. Christopher Waller told CNBC that he thought his interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went “well.”

“I mean, it was a lot of discussion about various aspects of talking about various speeches I’ve given my points of view, they’ve kind of wanted to follow up on tales of it,” Waller said in October. “I just thought it was great. I mean, it was really there was nothing political about it. There was nothing. It was all serious economic discussion. So that’s why I thought it was brilliant.”

As of late October, Waller is the second behind Hassett in leading prediction markets, though his lead over the other contenders is much smaller than Hassett’s.

Waller, a longtime regional Fed official, was seen as a convention pick when Trump nominated him to the central bank in 2019. Simultaneously, Trump also nominated Judy Shelton, a former campaign advisor and a Fed critic. The fight over Shelton’s nomination soon spilled over onto Waller’s.

In December 2020, the Senate confirmed Waller 48-47, the narrowest margin for any Fed governor since 1980, per The New York Times.

In July, Waller joined Gov. Michelle Bowman (another Trump first-term pick) in opposing the Fed’s decision not to cut interest rates, the first dual dissent in more than 30 years.

Kevin Warsh

Trump told reporters in September that Hassett, Waller, and Warsh were “the top three” to replace Powell.

Back during his first term, Trump reportedly considered Warsh to lead the Fed before he chose to nominate Powell in 2017.

Warsh spent his early years at Morgan Stanley, working as a specialist in mergers and acquisitions. President George W. Bush nominated him to the Fed in 2006 after Warsh served as an economic advisor in the Bush White House.

Drawing on his Wall Street ties, Warsh played a pivotal role in the central bank’s response to the 2008 global financial crisis. When he left the Fed in 2011, the Times called him the Fed’s chief liaison to Wall Street.

From the sidelines, Warsh has echoed Trump’s criticism of Powell, calling for “regime change” at the Fed.

“The specter of the miss they made on inflation, it has stuck with them,” Warsh told CNBC in July. “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.”

Michelle Bowman

In 2018, Trump appointed Federal Reserve Gov. Michelle Bowman to the central bank.

After confirmation, she was reappointed in 2020. In June, she was narrowly confirmed as the vice chair of supervision.

Bowman started as an intern for Sen. Bob Dole. During the George W. Bush administration, she held posts at FEMA and the Homeland Security Department. She was vice president at Farmers and Drovers Bank in Kansas, her family’s bank, before becoming the state’s top banking official.

In September 2024, Bowman became the first Fed governor to vote against an interest rate decision since 2005. In July, she again voted against holding rates steady, though this time Waller joined her dissent.

Rick Rieder

There’s also a big Wall Street name on Trump’s shortlist.

Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of global fixed income at BlackRock, has spent decades on Wall Street, dating back to his time at Lehman Brothers.

Rieder is responsible for managing roughly $2.4 trillion in assets, per BlackRock. He’s served as a member of the Fed’s Investment Advisory Committee on Financial Markets.

The hopefuls who appear to have missed the cut

A composite image of David Zervos, Lorie Logan, and James Bullard — Jefferies’ David Zervos, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, and former St. Louis Fed President James Bullard were reportedly once on Trump’s shortlist.

Reuters

Trump’s shortlist at one point reportedly had almost a dozen names.

CNBC previously reported that the following are no longer under consideration: David Zervos, Managing Director and Chief Market Strategist at Jefferies; Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan; former St. Louis Fed President James “Jim” Bullard; Fed Gov. Philip Jefferson; and Marc Sumerlin, a former economic advisor to President George W. Bush.

Former Fed Gov. Larry Lindsey told CNBC that he withdrew from contention.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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