Kevin Warsh just held his first press conference as Federal Reserve Chair, and the most notable thing he communicated was that he might stop communicating so much.
The FOMC voted to hold interest rates steady at its June 17, 2026 meeting, Warsh’s inaugural gathering as the 17th Chair of the Federal Reserve. The press conference began at 2:30 p.m. ET and introduced markets to a Fed leader who appears philosophically opposed to the idea that the central bank should be an open book.
A new era of fewer words
Warsh has been publicly skeptical about the necessity of holding press conferences after every FOMC meeting. Under Jerome Powell, the Fed moved toward more transparency, with pressers following each of the eight annual meetings. Warsh’s preferred approach has a name: “strategic ambiguity.”
Rates hold, inflation lingers
