It should be noted that the Fed chair’s influence over monetary policy is not absolute. Decisions about interest rates are instead up to a 12-person board called the Federal Open Market Committee. It decides collectively what the course of monetary policy should be.

But whoever Trump picks will be the head of the committee and will have sway over monetary policy in that capacity.

Christopher Waller

Current Fed Gov. Christopher Waller, who was nominated to the post by Trump in 2019, has been one of the most closely watched FOMC members.

Waller, alongside fellow Fed Gov. Michelle Bowman, dissented at the last Fed meeting in July, during which the FOMC held rates steady, preferring a 0.25% basis point cut.

The Fed’s current interest rate target is 4.25% to 4.50%. Waller has expressed that he thinks the Fed’s policy rate should come down to 3%, notably lower than what interest rates are now, but still higher than the 1% level that Trump has floated.

Michelle Bowman

Federal Reserve Vice Chairwoman for Supervision Michelle Bowman is also a potential Trump pick for Fed chair. She voted alongside Waller for lower rates and was appointed this year to the supervisory role by Trump. She was previously appointed to the Fed board by Trump during his first term.

She said this week that her views on lower interest rates haven’t changed since the last Fed meeting.

“The story is out there, and that’s that. I haven’t changed my views,” she told Bloomberg.

Kevin Warsh

Kevin Warsh is a former member of the Fed Board of Governors who served from 2006 to 2011 and has been a prominent name in the world of finance and economics for quite some time.

Former President George W. Bush nominated him to the Fed board in 2006, and he served in the influential role under both Bush and former President Barack Obama. A big chunk of his time at the Fed overlapped the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession. After leaving the central bank, Warsh worked as a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

In a recent Fox News appearance, he indicated he wanted to see rates move down.

“The Fed has the policy mix exactly wrong — it has a big balance sheet, like we’re in the ‘08 crisis or the 2020 pandemic, and has rates that are too high,” Warsh said. “It needs to shrink the Fed balance sheet and cut interest rates. In so doing, Main Street can get a much lower cost of credit.”

Kevin Hassett

Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett is also one of the top names being floated to lead the central bank.

Hassett served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2017 until 2019 and then as a senior adviser to the president on economic issues for a few months in 2020. Hassett was a professor at Columbia University in the early 1990s before going to work as an economist on the Fed board.

Hassett has critiqued the Fed under Powell for holding interest rates steady. The Fed has not cut rates once since Trump entered office, and Hassett said in July that he thinks interest rates should be about 1.5 percentage points lower.

James Bullard

Former Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard has indicated an openness to being picked as Fed chair. Bullard served as president of the St. Louis Fed from 2018 until his departure in 2023.

Bullard said during a Bloomberg appearance on Friday that he thinks interest rates could be lowered a full percentage point going into 2026, but he would “want to go slowly in order to watch the data.”

POWELL SIGNALS RATE CUTS ARE COMING

Other candidates are reportedly in the mix, too, and it appears that Trump is still weighing several options.

Bettors on Kalshi, the first government-regulated exchange dedicated to trading on the outcome of future events, gave Waller the best odds, followed by Warsh and Hassett.