Trump has recently finished interviews of five candidates for the next Fed Chair, including Powell, Stanford University economist John Taylor, former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and current Fed Chair Janet Yellen, whose term expires next February.
Trump said on Monday that he was “very, very close” to making a decision on who is going to lead the central bank.
Trump’s advisors have been steering him toward choosing either Powell or Taylor for the job. Powell is favoured by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, while Taylor is favoured by Vice President Mike Pence. While Powell and Taylor are both Republicans, they would have much different approaches to running monetary policy at the central bank.
