Kevin Warsh was sworn in as chair of the Federal Reserve on May 22, 2026, in a White House ceremony that hasn’t happened for a Fed chief since Alan Greenspan took the oath in 1987. President Trump, standing nearby, told Warsh to be “totally independent” and not to look at him while making decisions.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath. The Senate had confirmed Warsh just nine days earlier, on May 13, with a 55-45 vote that split largely along party lines.
Warsh succeeds Jerome Powell, whose term ended the week before the swearing-in. Powell’s tenure was marked by persistent public clashes with Trump over interest rate policy.
Warsh is not a newcomer to the Fed. He served as a governor on the Federal Reserve Board from 2006 to 2011, a stretch that included the 2008 financial crisis and its chaotic aftermath. During that period, he developed a reputation as someone willing to question the Fed’s more aggressive interventionist policies, sometimes publicly.
Throughout his confirmation hearings, Warsh hammered home two themes: central bank independence and data-driven policymaking. He dismissed any suggestion that he had made prior commitments on interest rates. His background includes work at Morgan Stanley before his first Fed stint, and a fellowship at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, where he has written and spoken extensively about monetary policy frameworks.
