Kevin Warsh just held his first FOMC meeting as Federal Reserve Chair, and he used it to make one thing very clear: the era of the Fed gently whispering sweet nothings to markets is over.
At the June 17 meeting, Warsh held the federal funds rate steady at 3.5%-3.75% while unveiling plans for five separate task forces designed to overhaul how the central bank communicates, manages its balance sheet, handles data, thinks about jobs and productivity, and, perhaps most importantly, frames its entire approach to inflation. For a guy who once called inflation “a choice,” that last one carries some weight.
A new sheriff with an old grudge against easy money
Warsh is not exactly a stranger to the Fed. He served as a governor from 2006 to 2011, a period that included the financial crisis and the birth of quantitative easing. He was, to put it mildly, not a fan of that last part.
His return to the Fed, after being nominated by President Trump in March 2026 and confirmed by the Senate in May, has been framed as nothing less than a “regime change.” Where his predecessor Jerome Powell gradually warmed to the idea of using the Fed’s massive balance sheet as an active policy tool, Warsh wants to shrink the central bank’s footprint in financial markets.
