US President Donald Trump said Friday he will nominate former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell as chair of the US central bank, setting the stage for a high-stakes Senate confirmation battle.
The decision, announced by Trump on his social media platform Truth Social, confirmed Thursday reports that Trump would move ahead with the 55‑year‑old ex–Fed official and Morgan Stanley banker as his preferred candidate.
The president said that he had known Warsh for a long time and had “no doubt” that he would go down as “one of the “GREAT Fed chairmen, maybe the best.”
Prediction markets and Wall Street commentators had increasingly tipped Warsh as Trump’s likely choice, with odds rising sharply ahead of Friday’s announcement.
Warsh’s record at the Fed
Warsh served on the Federal Reserve Board from 2006 to 2011 and has since been a frequent critic of ultra‑loose monetary policy, calling for a “regime change” at the Fed and questioning its post‑crisis balance sheet expansion.
Warsh has been noticeably more upbeat on Bitcoin (BTC) than Powell, who repeatedly played down the cryptocurrency’s importance for the United States economy.
Related: Bitcoin investor sentiment cools amid US shutdown fears, Fed policy jitters
In a July discussion hosted by the Hoover Institution, Warsh rejected the notion that Bitcoin would weaken the Fed’s ability to steer the economy, arguing instead that it could act as a form of market discipline.
Market reaction and gold sell‑off
Warsh’s selection comes as traders have already been repricing risk assets, including Bitcoin, around the prospect of a more hawkish Fed chair and the threat of a partial US government shutdown.
Gold advocate and analyst Peter Schiff argued that the “crash” in gold and silver today had “nothing to do with Trump nominating Kevin Warsh to be Fed chair.”
He said that Trump would not have nominated him if he thought he would be a hawk, and, anyway, “even the most hawkish FOMC members are still doves.”
The nomination will require confirmation by the US Senate, where lawmakers are expected to scrutinize Warsh’s past calls for tighter policy and his criticism of the Powell Fed’s approach to regulation and crisis interventions.
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