President Donald Trump led a swearing-in ceremony Kevin Warsh as president of Federal Reserveputting him at the head of a central bank which must go through a tumultuous period economy and a president with very specific expectations on interest rate.
Trump, whose actions toward the Fed have sparked bipartisan concerns about executive influence over the historically independent central bank, said he wanted Warsh to “just do what he wants and do a great job.”
“I want Kevin to be completely independent,” Trump said at the start of the event Friday morning. “Don’t look at me, don’t look at anyone.”
But the inauguration ceremony itself highlighted the president’s unprecedented involvement with the Fed during his second term: Warsh is the first Fed chairman to be sworn in at the White House since Alan Greenspan in 1987.
The event in the East Room was attended by a number of high-profile figures, including Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and many other politicians and Cabinet officials.
Thomas took the oath of office at Warsh.
“Our mandate at the Fed is to promote price stability and maximum employment,” Warsh said after taking the oath of office.
“When we pursue these goals with wisdom and clarity, independence and determination, inflation can be lower, growth higher, real wages higher, and America can be more prosperous and, just as important, America’s place in the world more secure,” he said.
“To fulfill this mission, I will lead a reform-oriented Federal Reserve, learning from past successes and mistakes, escaping static frameworks and models and upholding clear standards of integrity and performance,” he said.
Wars56, is the 11th Fed Chairman of the modern banking era, succeeding Jerome Powellwho served eight years.
Powell, a major target of Trump’s ire over his refusal to cut rates as quickly or sharply as the president wanted, will continue to serve at the Fed as governor. He is the first Fed chairman to make such a decision in almost 80 years.
Friday’s swearing-in marks Warsh’s second stint at the Fed. He already served as governor from 2006 to 2011, during which the central bank joined forces with Treasury officials to save the economy from the global financial crisis.
Although Warsh contributed to the Fed’s efforts, he later criticized the central bank for letting crisis policies remain in place and overstepping its mandate of price stability and low unemployment. For example, he cited previous efforts to address climate change and social inequality as areas of mission drift, and pledged to reduce the central bank’s footprint on markets.
Warsh won the seat through a broad competition that began in the summer of 2025 and included up to 11 candidates, ranging from current and former Fed officials to prominent Wall Street economists and strategists.
Powell’s tenure was marked by repeated and often personal criticism from Trump. The president demanded more aggressive rate-cutting action from the Fed and accused Powell of having “Trump derangement syndrome,” even though the Fed lowered its benchmark borrowing rate by three-quarters of a percentage point and raised it by 4.25 points during one period of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Despite Trump’s demands for a rate cut, markets are betting that the Fed will maintain the status quo for most, if not all, of 2026, and then possibly raise rates in early 2027.
Powell’s campaign was also characterized by inflation above the Fed’s 2% target for five consecutive years. Warsh vowed he could both control inflation while lowering benchmark rates.
Since leaving the Fed, Warsh has worked at Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office and as a lecturer at Stanford University and the Hoover Institution. Warsh was considered a leading candidate for Fed chair when Trump made it clear he was not going to reappoint Janet Yellen, but the president ultimately chose Powell, apparently at the urging of former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.