Fed’s Warsh says he meets ‘often’ with Trump administration

Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh declined to say at a Senate banking committee hearing Wednesday whether he has spoken with President Donald Trump since becoming chairman, but confirmed he has been in regular contact with the Trump administration.

This does not affect his independence, Warsh said.

Warsh is in a delicate position in his seventh week as Fed chairman. As Warsh walks away from his talk about the Fed’s plans, investors are trying to predict where the Fed will take interest rates. He was appointed by a president who has said low interest rates are a litmus test for his election and has continued to call for cuts since Warsh’s confirmation. Any allegation that Warsh is not acting honestly on his views could threaten his ability to get the divided Federal Open Market Committee to reach consensus on interest rates.

The White House declined to comment on any conversations between the President and the Fed Chairman, saying it did not discuss any of the president’s private conversations that may or may not have occurred.

A Fed spokesman declined to comment.

Warsh repeatedly defended his independence and the credibility that comes with it during his two days before Congress, starting with the House of Representatives on Tuesday and moving on to the Senate on Wednesday.

“The independence of the Federal Reserve is sacrosanct,” Warsh said Tuesday. “Some of the Fed’s power doesn’t come just from the printing press, although that can be useful at times. It comes from our credibility, our credibility to make the best choices we can, consistent with the law you wrote for us.”

As Warsh noted in both days of testimony, inflation has remained above the Fed’s 2% target for the past 63 months. Inflation fell in June, according to consumer and producer price index data released this week, but Warsh was careful not to take a victory lap.

“Any central bank would be happy to see the data going in the right direction. In my view these are all flawed measures of the underlying state of inflation,” he said.

This view of inflation is open to debate within the Fed. Warsh created a working group to review what the Fed thinks about inflation. However, it is not certain that the Fed will accept the working group’s and Warsh’s views on the issue.

The FOMC appears divided on the path of interest rates. Fed Governor Christopher Waller and New York Federal Reserve President John Williams have said in recent days that it may be necessary to raise interest rates this year.

But if Warsh still needs allies at the Fed, he also has one in the Trump administration. The White House said Trump respected Warsh’s views on how to run the Fed, even though Trump generally wanted interest rates lowered.

The Fed chairman and the Treasury secretary meet for a weekly breakfast, a long-standing tradition.

Warsh said Wednesday that he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are continuing that tradition and going above and beyond.

“I meet with the Treasury Secretary every week. By the way, I talk to him often.” He added that he would make decisions regarding interest rates.

A spokesman for Bessent declined to comment.

Warsh and Bessent share investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who employed Warsh for more than a decade until he became Fed chairman. Earlier in his career, Bessent worked as a hedge fund manager at Druckenmiller. Warsh and Bessent’s work at Druckenmiller did not overlap, but the pair knew each other well before taking their current jobs.

Before becoming Fed chairman, Warsh said he wanted to negotiate a new Treasury-Fed Agreement, citing the 1951 agreement that established the Fed’s modern independence. Warsh said the Fed wants to delegate some authority over its balance sheet to the Treasury secretary. He has not elaborated on these views since becoming Fed chairman and has created a working group to review the Fed’s balance sheet policy.

Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday that he, too, had recently met with Warsh. Hassett said Warsh praised the new task forces when the two spoke.

Warsh, when asked directly by the Senate banking committee, declined to say whether he had spoken to the president since he became chairman. However, he stated that if there is, this should not be seen as a problem.

“I certainly wouldn’t mind getting a call from the chairman of this committee or the president of the United States,” Warsh said.

public calendars The schedule released by the Fed shows that Warsh’s predecessor, Jerome Powell, met or called Bessent only a handful of times outside of regular breakfast meetings. One such meeting took place in 2026, where Powell and Bessent discussed the risks of artificial intelligence with bank CEOs in April.