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- Apr 25, 2026, 4:30 PM
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- Kevin Warsh came before the Senate Banking Committee on April 21 with a simple message: The Federal Reserve is broken, and he is the person to fix it.
Warsh, 56, a former Fed governor and successful investor, is President Donald Trump’s nominee to become the 17th chair of the Fed, replacing current Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends on May 15. Warsh has laid out a vision for America’s central bank that differs notably from Powell’s and that of other recent Fed leaders. He has argued that the Fed should move faster to implement monetary policy, trust markets more, and narrow its footprint in the policy realm. Specifically, he wants to cut interest rates, shrink the Fed’s $6.7 trillion balance sheet, and reform how the institution communicates and conducts policy.
The biggest obstacle to Warsh’s confirmation fell away on Friday, when the Department of Justice closed a criminal investigation into Powell’s handling of the renovation of the Fed’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, handing the matter back to the Fed’s own inspector general. Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) had vowed to withhold his “yea” vote until the probe had ended. The Senate banking committee moved quickly to schedule a confirmation vote for Wednesday, and for the first time in months, a timely leadership transition at the Fed seems all but assured.
Far less certain, however, is Warsh’s ability to realize his ambitious agenda, given persistent inflation, rising oil prices, and the increasingly hawkish tilt of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s policy-setting arm.
Illustration by Mona Eing & Michael Meissner
