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Fed chair selection
Reports say U.S. President Donald Trump is prepared to nominate Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve when he announces his selection on Friday, to replace Jerome Powell whose term ends in May.
“Que gagne vraiment Donald Trump”
The reports also say Trump met with Warsh on Thursday, and a person familiar with the discussion said Warsh had impressed the president.
Warsh has been described as Bitcoin-friendly, with a July interview with the Hoover Institution in which he said it could "bring discipline to the market".
In that same context, the reports say the odds of Warsh being named Fed chair increased while the odds of former favorite Rick Rieder and economist Kevin Hassett fell.
The reports add that Trump said on Thursday he would announce on Friday morning his choice to replace Powell, and that the U.S. dollar strengthened and Treasury yields rose in response to the growing expectation of Warsh over Rieder and Hassett.
Trump and Hoover
Trump has said twice in two days that he doesn’t want to be associated with Herbert Hoover, telling Marc Caputo on “The Axios Show” that, "I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover."
At his press conference at the G-7 in France, Trump also said, "I’ve studied presidents — some good, some bad, some great."
The account says Trump floated the idea as early as 2018 that he could fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, warning that Powell’s rate hikes would "turn me into Hoover."
It further says that in January 2024 Trump predicted an economic crash under President Biden and hoped it would land before the election "because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover."
The piece frames the comparison by noting that Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs and that Trump made tariffs the core of his economic project.
Policy, markets, and risk
The Fed-chair reporting links Warsh’s views to policy expectations, saying Warsh is seen as a candidate who would push fiscal austerity, lower inflation, and an exit from quantitative easing.
“s failures President Trump said twice in two days last week that he doesn’t want to be associated with Herbert Hoover, who served during the early years of the Great Depression”
It also contrasts Warsh’s favorable view of Bitcoin with Powell, saying Powell has largely dismissed the cryptocurrency's role in the U.S. economy.
In the same reporting, the article says the U.S. dollar strengthened and Treasury yields rose as expectations grew that Trump would choose the more aggressive Warsh over Rieder and Hassett.
Separately, the Hoover comparison account says Trump fears that a single crash could swallow his presidency the way the Depression swallowed Hoover’s.
Together, the two accounts place Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve at the center of Trump’s stated concerns—whether through a potential replacement on Friday or through Trump’s earlier warning that Powell’s rate hikes would "turn me into Hoover."
