Senate Confirms Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair in Bitter 54-45 Vote, Powell Era Ends

The Senate on Wednesday narrowly confirmed Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, voting 54-45 to install President Donald Trump's nominee atop the world's most powerful central bank in what amounted to the most divisive Fed chair confirmation in modern history. The vote fell almost entirely along party lines, with only Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania crossing over to join every Republican in support.

Warsh, 56, is a former Fed governor who served on the Board during the 2008 financial crisis and has spent the last decade as a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. He replaces Jerome Powell, who had led the Fed since 2018 and whose term as chair expired on Thursday. Powell will continue to hold a seat as a Fed governor for the time being, though his future role at the central bank remains unclear after more than a year of unrelenting public pressure from the White House to cut interest rates faster.

The confirmation capped one of the more bruising battles for a central-bank post in recent memory. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina had stalled the nomination for weeks while demanding the Justice Department drop a probe into Powell's congressional testimony about cost overruns on the Fed's headquarters renovation. Powell publicly called the investigation a politicized response to broader "threats and ongoing pressure" from the administration, and the probe was eventually shelved, clearing the way for Wednesday's vote.

During his confirmation hearing, Warsh told senators that he saw "room" to lower interest rates from their current range but pledged to use his own judgment in setting monetary policy and explicitly promised not to take orders from the White House. He inherits an economy in which inflation has been creeping back up — the most recent reading clocked in at 3.8% — even as the labor market has softened, complicating any push for rapid easing. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts argued in floor remarks that Warsh was "uniquely ill-suited for the job" and warned that his confirmation would undermine the independence the Fed has guarded for generations.

Warsh's first meeting as chair of the Federal Open Market Committee is scheduled for June 16-17, when policymakers will set the path for interest rates through the summer. Wall Street largely shrugged at the confirmation in the immediate aftermath, with bond yields ticking modestly higher and the dollar little changed. Trump allies including Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee have publicly warned that rate cuts may have to wait until inflation cools further, signaling that even with a Trump-aligned chair in place the Fed's path forward will be anything but smooth.