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President Donald Trump’s pick for the next chairman of the Federal Reserve has advanced in the U.S. Senate.
Kevin Warsh, a financier and former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, was confirmed to the board again by the Senate on Tuesday, in a vote of 51-45.
This clears the way for an upcoming vote that will likely confirm him as the next Federal Reserve chairman.
Tuesday’s positive vote for Warsh, who once served as the youngest Fed Governor at age 35, is a big win for President Trump, who has made no secret of his distaste for current Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
In January, the president nominated Kevin Warsh to succeed Powell, whose term expires this month.
“I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best,” President Trump said in his nomination statement earlier this year. “On top of everything else, he is ‘central casting,’ and he will never let you down.”
Warsh may presumably take a less stringent approach to holding central bank interest rates – a sticking point between Powell and Trump that has erupted into a full-scale political battle.
“He is TOO LATE, and actually, TOO ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL, to have the job of Fed Chair. He is costing our Country TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS, in addition to one of the most incompetent, or corrupt, renovations of a building(s) in the history of construction!” the president fired off last summer, criticizing Powell for holding interest rates.
Amid the war in the Middle East, Powell has remained unchanged on the policy decision to maintain interest rates. As reported by RSBN, Powell has largely maintained that Federal Reserve policies cannot be directed by politics, but rather, the economic environment.
