Who's next to chair Fed after Powell? From Michelle Bowman to Philip Jefferson, Trump admin eyes potential candidates

Mint

18 hours ago

Amid growing speculation about who will replace Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve's two vice chairs, Michelle Bowman and Philip Jefferson, along with Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, are reportedly being considered to lead the central bank when the chair position opens next year.
The search for the next Fed chair is being conducted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who will interview more candidates in the upcoming weeks, according to a reported by Bloomberg News citing officials who requested anonymity. US President Donald Trump is anticipated to make his final decision this fall.
Other candidates include Kevin Hassett, a close economic adviser to Trump, Fed Governor Christopher Waller, economist Marc Sumerlin, and former Fed officials Kevin Warsh and James Bullard.
Meanwhile, Trump last week nominated Stephen Miran, chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, to the Fed's Board of Governors for the end of January. The position opened up when Adriana Kugler announced her early departure. Miran, with a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, has endorsed Trump's proposal for lower interest rates.
Since Miran's nomination is now going to the Senate for confirmation, the Trump team doesn't see a need to expedite finding a chair, the news agency reported.
Calling the interest rates too high, Trump this year directed consistent criticism at the Fed and especially Chair Jerome Powell, whom he picked for the job in 2017.
The Fed's upcoming policy meeting is set for 16-17 September in Washington.
However, Trump's options for replacing Powell might be more constrained than usual. Typically, Fed chairs step down when their terms end. However, Powell has not confirmed whether he will leave in May. He has the option to remain as a governor until 2028 if he decides to stay.
This means Trump must either assign his preferred chair to the seat Miran will occupy until January and support their promotion in May, or choose someone already on the Board of Governors, such as Bowman or Jefferson.
Any nomination to appoint an outsider to the board or to promote a governor to chair must be confirmed by the Senate.
In 2018, Trump appointed Bowman to the Fed and named her vice chair for supervision, the central bank's top regulator this year. When the Fed's rate-setting committee kept interest rates unchanged for the fifth consecutive time in July, Bowman and Waller dissented, supporting a quarter-percentage-point cut.
In 2022, President Joe Biden appointed Jefferson to the board and named him vice chair in 2023. He received broad bipartisan support for both confirmations.
When Jefferson was nominated for the first time, Hassett, a former colleague at Columbia University, highly praised him.
'Phil Jefferson is someone I would have been 100% comfortable telling President Trump to nominate to the Federal Reserve,' Hassett said. 'He's exactly the kind of person I want at the Fed.'
Notably, Jefferson, the Fed's first Black chair, has backed this year's decision to keep rates unchanged.
Logan was chosen by directors at the Dallas Fed to assume the top position there in 2022. She previously worked at the New York Fed as manager of the Fed's extensive securities portfolio. She has also advocated maintaining rates at their current level this year, frequently highlighting the importance of guarding against tariff-driven inflation.
The panel responsible for setting rates, the Federal Open Market Committee, consists of all seven Fed governors, the president of the New York Fed, and four of the remaining eleven regional presidents on a rotating basis. The Dallas president will have a vote in 2026.