Finance Minister Scott Bessent confirmed on Monday that the list of candidates for the next chairperson of the Federal Reserve has been reduced by about half. There are currently about five candidates remaining.
They are: current Federal Reserve governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, former governor Kevin Warsh, White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, and BlackRock executive Rick Rieder.
Bessonet, who is in charge of the review process, said he plans to conduct another round of interviews with the aim of submitting a list of “good candidates” to President Donald Trump after the Thanksgiving holiday.
Given Trump’s efforts to exert greater influence over the Federal Reserve and its interest rate decisions, investors and Fed watchers are closely monitoring the details of the selection process for Jerome Powell’s successor, whose term as chair ends in May.
Hassett currently serves as the director of the National Economic Council in the White House and is one of Trump’s senior advisers and allies. He also worked in the White House during Trump’s first term. In his early career, he served as an economist at the Federal Reserve and the director of research at the American Enterprise Institute.
Hassett has maintained close contact with the president on matters related to the Federal Reserve. Earlier this year, when Fed policymakers kept interest rates stable for several consecutive months, Hassett echoed Trump’s criticism of Powell and accused the Fed of being “behind the times” in cutting interest rates.
He also said that the Fed has put its independence and credibility at risk through its own actions, which echoes Bessen’s criticism of the Fed’s “mission creep”.
Waller has served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board since his appointment by Trump in 2020. For a long time, he has been a defender of the central bank’s independence and has become known in recent years for making prescient (and sometimes even contrarian) economic forecasts.
In 2025, he became the first Federal Reserve governor to call for a resumption of interest rate cuts and warned that signs of weakness in the labor market were increasing. A series of disappointing employment reports this summer confirmed his early predictions.
Although Dr. Waller is an economist and is currently calling for lower interest rates, his friends and colleagues say that he is unwilling to sacrifice his reputation as a reliable economist for political or personal gain.
Bowman currently serves as the vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve. Trump appointed her to the Federal Reserve Board in 2018 and promoted her earlier this year.
Bowman, nicknamed “Miki”, is a fifth-generation banker. Before joining the Federal Reserve, she served as the Kansas State Bank Commissioner. She is a lawyer who has worked in the George W. Bush administration and served as a legal advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee.
Since taking over as vice chair for supervision in June, Bowman has led the effort to develop plans to eliminate a key capital rule for large banks and has supported the revocation of standards requiring banks to detail how they manage climate-related risks.
She was also an early advocate of rate cuts this year and, in July, joined Waller in opposing the majority decision to maintain stable interest rates.
Warsh served as a Federal Reserve governor from 2006 to 2011 and was the youngest governor in the Fed’s history. During the financial crisis, his experience and connections on Wall Street were crucial to the Fed. In 2017, he was almost nominated by Trump as the chair of the Federal Reserve, but ultimately lost to Powell.
Since leaving the Federal Reserve, Warsh has frequently criticized the institution. Recently, he called for systemic change: “This will require breaking some minds because the way they operate doesn’t work,” he told Fox News in July.
Wash especially criticized the expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet, which is in line with Bessen’s view. He also believes that the Fed can further cut interest rates by significantly reducing the central bank’s investment portfolio. His current open attitude towards rate cuts is contrary to his long-standing reputation as an inflation hawk.
Reed is one of the most senior executives at BlackRock, in charge of the company’s fixed income business. Before that, he worked at Lehman Brothers for nearly two decades and joined BlackRock in 2009.
In an interview with CNBC in September, Reed said that based on his interpretation of the economic situation, the Federal Reserve should have chosen to cut interest rates by half a percentage point. However, the Federal Reserve ultimately only cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point.
He also said that the independence of the Federal Reserve is “crucial” because investors need to have confidence in the dollar, debt and debt financing, but he added that the Federal Reserve could be more “innovative”.
Bloomberg News reported that during his interview for the chairmanship, Treasury Secretary Bezant was impressed by Reed’s long career in managing large employee groups in the market and his profound understanding of micro and macroeconomic dynamics.
