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Republicans like Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary, and they’d support him as chair of the Federal Reserve. Just maybe not at the same time.
As President Donald Trump criticized current Fed Chair Jerome Powell yet again on Tuesday for not cutting interest rates, Republicans cautioned the president to take his time before announcing who could replace Powell next year — whether that’s Bessent or someone else.
Most crucially for the administration, though, two senior GOP senators on key fiscal committees aired worries about one person holding both the Treasury job and the Fed chairmanship. That idea, which the White House dismissed after Bloomberg reported this month that Trump’s advisers had discussed it with him, would break nearly a century of precedent and spark questions about its effect on the central bank’s independence.
“I just don’t think it would be a good idea,” Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, a Republican who serves on the Banking Committee with jurisdiction over Fed nominees, told Semafor. “When you’re chair of the Federal Reserve, you’re independent. You can’t have one foot in the independence camp and another foot in the political camp.”
Senate Republicans have significant sway over the process: They would confirm any new nominee to replace Powell, whose term as Fed chair expires next year, as well as any potential Bessent replacement at Treasury. They are trying to balance Trump’s distaste for Powell with uncertain economic conditions stemming from the president’s tariff regime, which Bessent is helping to spearhead.
Kennedy said that in-limbo economic conditions created another reason for caution about the Fed chairmanship. Markets fighting to remain upright amid Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs can scarcely afford another source of uncertainty, he said.
“We’re at a critical juncture in this economy,” Kennedy said. “The president is imposing more tariffs; we don’t know the impact that will have on the American economy, or the global economy. I would just be very careful.”
Sen. Thom TIllis, R-N.C., who serves on both the Banking and Finance committees, said that Bessent would “be a very competent Fed chair. I think he’s also a very competent Treasurer. And we can’t clone him.”
It’s “very difficult to deal with monetary policy, the dual mandate of the Fed and all the other things that’s on the Treasurer’s plate,” Tillis added.
On Tuesday, a White House spokesman defended Trump’s comments on Powell, who the president said is “whining like a baby about non-existent inflation.”
“It is President Trump’s First Amendment right as an American citizen and duty as our commander in chief to voice his concerns about flawed policymaking, and that includes monetary policy that’s holding our country’s economic resurgence back,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson.
“President Trump will continue to nominate the most qualified individuals who can best serve the American people.”
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Other Republicans indicated they would prefer the former hedge fund manager to remain focused on leading Treasury, but didn’t dismiss the idea of double-duty.
“He’s the star of the show down there as far as I’m concerned,” said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has long advocated for fellow South Carolinan Bessent and said he’d support Bessent holding both roles. “He can have five jobs as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to lose him as Treasury secretary.”
Bessent himself is careful to avoid shutting down the idea when asked. He told CNBC only that “it hasn’t been done since 1930-something, and I’m very happy in my job here,” adding that “I think we have lots of good candidates for Fed chair.”
He said Tuesday that whoever succeeds Powell would be “the president’s choice.”
The View From Democrats
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, told Semafor that Bessent serving as Treasury secretary and Fed chair at the same time is “a really bad idea.”
“The secretary of the Treasury serves at the pleasure of the president, and that’s how it should be,” Warren said. “The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board operates independently of the presidency. There is no world in which one person can do both of those things, simultaneously. It’s not possible.”
Room for Disagreement
Several senior Senate Republicans signaled deference to Trump on key staffing decisions, suggesting they could support the idea — including Sen. James Lankford, who told Semafor that “obviously, the two of them spend a lot of time together.”
“I don’t give advice to the president on his nominations,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the Finance chair and a senior Banking Committee member. “I’m not going to say yes or no.”
Eleanor and Burgess’ View
The second Trump administration has fought hard for greater control over banking regulators — including the Fed, which is responsible for supervising financial institutions, as well as setting monetary policy.
But the administration has consciously not touched the Fed’s monetary policy purview. That includes the market-calming Bessent, who’s publicly defended the central bank’s right to “stay strong, robust and independent in monetary policy.”
As a result, it’s hard to imagine the administration feeling fully comfortable installing a top White House official to simultaneously serve as Fed chair, no matter how much Bessent might sound like he’s entertaining it.
If Trump ultimately opts to give Bessent both jobs, his path through the Senate could be rocky. Still, there is some precedent for it — Trump made Marco Rubio his secretary of state, his national security adviser, and the acting national archivist, and gave US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer two other key roles.
Peter Conti-Brown, who studies central banking as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, underscored the uncharted territory Trump would be traversing if he made Bessent Treasury and Fed chief.
“Appointing Secretary Bessent without his resignation from the Treasury would be a catastrophic mistake, sending the wrong signal to jittery markets about whether the Fed would in fact be free to set monetary policy according to its members’ understanding of the needs of the economy,” Conti-Brown said.
But if there’s anything Trump loves doing, it’s breaking norms (and consolidating responsibilities). After all, Bessent is one of Trump’s most trusted negotiators, both in the Capitol and abroad.
Notable
- Trump’s frustration over interest rates has spurred him to consider speeding up his announcement of who he wants to succeed Powell to as soon as this summer, The Wall Street Journal reports.