\n<\/p>\n
The US Senate is expected to confirm Kevin Warsh this week as chair of the Federal Reserve, as Donald Trump continues his campaign to influence the world\u2019s most important central bank.<\/p>\n
The Fed\u2019s influence over the economy spans from the job market to mortgage rates, and its every move is carefully scrutinized by investors on Wall Street. Warsh\u2019s confirmation comes at a turbulent time for the central bank, which has fallen under intense scrutiny from Trump for not lowering interest rates.<\/p>\n
The vote is expected to be split along party lines. Democrats criticize Warsh for being Trump\u2019s \u201csock puppet\u201d at a time when the president has pushed past the typical boundaries between the White House and the nonpartisan Fed.<\/p>\n
Warsh served on the Fed\u2019s board as a governor from 2006 to 2011 and developed a reputation as a so-called \u201cinflation hawk\u201d during the 2008 recession crisis \u2013 advocating for higher interest rates to mitigate rising prices.<\/p>\n
But since Trump started his second term, Warsh publicly aligned himself with the president\u2019s stance that interest rates are now too high. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last November, Warsh called the Fed\u2019s leadership \u201cbroken\u201d and called the bank \u201can institution whose reach has extended far beyond its grasp\u201d.<\/p>\n
Warsh told the Senate that he will be an \u201cindependent actor\u201d as Fed chair, but resisting pressure from the White House will be difficult amid the legal assault Trump has foisted upon the central bank for going against his wishes. When pushed by Democrats in Congress, Warsh refused to answer whether Trump had lost the 2020 election.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s battle with the Fed culminated in a criminal investigation against the outgoing Fed chair, Jerome Powell. Trump accused Powell of fraud over renovations at the Fed\u2019s headquarters that went over budget.<\/p>\n
Though the justice department ended its investigation after a Republican senator said he would hold up Warsh\u2019s nomination, Powell announced last month that he would stay on the Fed\u2019s board as a governor until any inquiry into the renovations are \u201cwell and truly over with transparency and finality\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his last press conference as chair, Powell noted that Warsh testified that he will withstand political pressure from Trump and that he will \u201ctake him at his word\u201d. But the outgoing Fed chair also made some of his most pointed remarks to date about the current risk to Fed\u2019s independence, which is crucial for the health of the economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe institution is being battered over these things. We\u2019re having to resort to the courts to enforce our \u2026 ability to make monetary policy without political considerations,\u201d Powell said. \u201cI\u2019d like to think we can get out of that era and go back to respecting what the law says and what custom has been.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US Senate is expected to confirm Kevin Warsh this week as chair of the Federal Reserve, as Donald Trump continues his campaign to influence the world\u2019s most important central bank. The Fed\u2019s influence over the economy spans from the job market to mortgage rates, and its every move is carefully scrutinized by investors on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[2431,8180,1845,319,428,517,1314,22648],"class_list":{"0":"post-49315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-chair","9":"tag-confirm","10":"tag-expected","11":"tag-federal","12":"tag-kevin","13":"tag-reserve","14":"tag-senate","15":"tag-warsh"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}