Don’t bank on Fed’s future clearing up before 2026
President Donald Trump said he would announce his choice to replace Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chairman in early 2026, delaying the Christmas deadline.
“We will probably announce someone early next year for the position of the new chairman of the Fed,” Trump said during a public Cabinet meeting at the White House. He reiterated a series of well-known attacks on Powell, whom Trump accused of sabotaging the economy by not accelerating interest rate cuts.
The president called Powell “an absolute idiot,” while acknowledging that he had spoken to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about taking the job.
Bessent had said earlier that Trump’s choice could be revealed by Christmas. Bessent led the search for the next Fed chair and spent the last month interviewing the final five remaining candidates: Fed Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman; former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, BlackRock chief investment officer Rick Rieder and White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett.
Trump is known for changing his mind on political and personal decisions, sticking to one until he doesn’t. A White House aide, granted anonymity to share internal thinking, told Quartz that the timing of the Fed’s announcement was up to President Trump and that he never committed to a timeline.
On Sunday, the president said he had already made a decision on who would replace Powell once his term ends in May 2026. “I know who I’m going to choose,” he told reporters at the time.
