By Mucahithan Avcioglu
ISTANBUL (AA) - US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will probably announce early next year his pick for the next Federal Reserve chair.
“We’ll be announcing somebody, probably early next year, for the new chairman of the Fed,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
The person in charge of the selection process, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, had said earlier that the choice might be made public before Christmas.
Without providing any other information, the president told reporters on Sunday that he knew who he would nominate.
Trump, for months, has urged the Fed to cut interest rates and said that picking a successor to Jerome Powell, whose term as Fed Chair expires in May 2026, would give the president his largest chance yet to reform the organization.
Trump has blasted Powell as being too hesitant and timid in seeking cuts, and hinted that he expects his replacement to act more strongly to decrease rates.
The US president echoed those criticisms Tuesday, calling Powell a “stubborn ox, who probably doesn’t like your president.” Powell may stay on the board for two more years as a governor, although his tenure as chair expires next year.
Trump also stated that they were examining 10 possible candidates for the Fed chair, and that many people, including Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, were involved in the process.
"But I think we probably looked at 10, and we have it down to one," Trump said.
Bessent stated last month that five candidates were being considered for the chair -- White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, Fed Vice Chair for Oversight Michelle Bowman, Fed Board Member Christopher Waller, former Fed Board Member Kevin Warsh, and Rick Rieder, a senior executive at asset management firm BlackRock.
- Dividends to be paid from tariff revenues
Trump stated that next year will be "the largest tax refund season ever," announcing that refunds will be issued from tariffs.
"Because we have taken in trillions of dollars, and we are going to be giving a nice dividend to the people," he said.
Emphasizing that they have generated a lot of revenue, Trump expressed his belief that "in the not-too-distant future," the public will not even pay income taxes.