As Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh prepares to address the Kansas City Fed’s annual conference for the first time on Friday morning, his critics hope he takes the opportunity to show his independence from President Donald Trump amid the president’s renewed attempt to oust central bank governor Lisa Cook.
But if he goes there, it’ll be subtle. “It will be necessarily implicit,” but not “an explicit theme,” former Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles told Semafor.
Quarles added that it’s “a fight that I don’t think would be wise to pick at this point,” given the Fed is already demonstrating its independence by not cutting rates.
“He’s got to be just as neutral as possible, and it’s really got to be just almost passive,” KPMG’s Diane Swonk told Semafor: “The commitment to independence has got to be embedded,” including in how Warsh talks about inflation.