Trump is expected to name next Fed chairman
President Donald Trump is expected to name Jerome H. Powell as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, replacing Janet L. Yellen, the current chair whose term expires in early 2018, according to two people familiar with the plans.
An announcement could come as soon as Thursday, before the president’s 12-day trip to Asia.
Powell, a Fed governor since 2012, is a Republican with deep roots in the party’s establishment and in the financial industry. He has steadily supported the Fed’s current approach to monetary policy and financial regulation, creating an expectation that he would bring continuity to the role.
One person familiar with the president’s thinking described Powell as the “safe” choice and the one who most closely fit Trump’s penchant for filling his government with characters from “central casting,” as he often puts it.
Both people familiar with the president’s thinking cautioned that Trump was notoriously mercurial in his decision-making and that he liked creating drama around important personnel decisions. However, both people, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the president appeared set on Powell and an announcement would come this week.
The announcement would cap an unusually public selection process, during which the
president has publicly discussed his views of various candidates, asked Republican senators to vote by raising their hands and sought the opinion of a television host.
Trump said last week in an Instagram video that he would announce a choice this week.
In looking past Yellen, Trump would be breaking with long-standing precedent. Every Fed chairman in modern history who completed a first term was nominated for a second. The last three Fed chairmen were nominated for new terms by a president of the opposite party.
“You like to make your own mark, which is maybe one of the things she’s got a little bit against her,” Trump said last week.
In choosing Powell, however, Trump would be resisting pressure by conservatives to make a larger change at the Fed. Many conservatives, including Vice President Mike Pence, favored the selection of John B. Taylor, an economist at Stanford and an outspoken critic of the Fed’s monetary policy.
Powell has consistently supported the Fed’s campaign to stimulate economic growth, although he expressed some reservations in internal debates about the extent of those efforts. In recent years, he has backed the methodical unwinding of those efforts, and analysts expect he would seek to raise interest rates at about the same pace as Yellen.
On regulatory policy, Powell has defended most changes made after the financial crisis as necessary to protect the broader economy, but he has said he supports efforts to streamline those rules.
Powell, a lawyer by training, worked as an investment banker before joining the Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush. He then made a fortune at the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, before leaving to work at the Bipartisan Policy Center as an expert on fiscal policy. He was nominated to the Fed by President Barack Obama in 2012.
A native of Washington, Powell has spent most of his life in the capital in a mix of public and private roles. He lives in Maryland and has three children.