Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts and ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, during a hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, March 26, 2026.
Aaron Schwartz | Bloomberg | getty images
Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a blistering letter to Federal Reserve chair candidate Kevin Wersh on Thursday, predicting he will serve as a “rubber stamp for President Trump’s Wall Street First agenda” and accusing him of “learning nothing from your failures” during his previous tenure at the central bank.
In the letter first reported by CNBC, Warren, D-Mass., told Warsh that his record as a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011 — which includes the 2008-09 financial crisis and the Great Recession — “should disqualify you from promotion.”
“But President Donald Trump has vowed that ‘anyone who disagrees with him’ will never become Fed chairman,” Warren said.
“And you, apparently, have passed his test,” she said.
“As Fed Chairman, you will be responsible for directing serious policies that will transform the economy
consequences for American workers and communities,” Warren wrote. “However, your track record before, during, and after the 2008 financial crisis raises significant concerns about your ability to do so.”
The letter, which CNBC obtained before it was publicly released, asked Warsh detailed questions about 10 different subject areas that needed to be answered at his confirmation hearing. Senate Banking CommitteeWhere Warren is the ranking Democrat.
But those questions read as a scathing eight-page indictment of his tenure at the Fed, and were buried beneath what he called his advocacy “against tough safeguards to prevent big bank failures and taxpayer bailouts” after leaving the central bank.
Warren said in the first sentence of the letter, “I am writing to better understand what you have learned from your failure to put American families on Wall Street before, during, and after the 2008 financial crisis while serving as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.”
“Instead of implementing policies to improve the lives of the American public, you condoned the blatantly excessive risk-taking on Wall Street; worked tirelessly to bail out large financial institutions after their bets damaged the economy; and advocated policies that will further harm millions of Americans who lost their jobs, were kicked out of their homes and saw their life savings wiped out.”
Warsh did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment about the letter.
Warren’s nomination is in limbo because Warren’s fellow Banking Committee member, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. has said he will effectively block the nomination from being considered by the full Senate until the criminal investigation into Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is resolved.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has indicated that she has no intention of dropping that investigation.
Pirro’s office is seeking to overturn a March 11 ruling by a federal judge in Washington blocking subpoenas issued to the Fed as part of Powell’s investigation, which focuses on alleged cost overruns of an expensive renovation of the Fed’s headquarters and testimony about that project to the Banking Committee.
District Court Judge James Boasberg wrote in his order quashing the subpoenas, “There is abundant evidence that the principal (if not the sole) purpose of the subpoenas is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for the Fed Chairman.”
Since Trump re-entered the White House in January 2025, Trump has repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, pressured Powell and the entire Board of Governors to cut interest rates more quickly and deeply.
Powell said in early March that if Warsh was not confirmed by May, he would remain chairman pro tem, when Powell’s term as chairman would end.
In her letter to Warsh on Thursday, Warren said that when she began her service on the Board of Governors, there were “warning signs of a coming crisis” in the subprime home-lending market.
Warren wrote, “Yet instead of using the Fed’s powerful supervisory and regulatory authorities to address the serious consumer and financial stability risks posed by subprime mortgages, you defended these products and even indirectly promoted them.”
“Surprisingly, in December 2007, you agreed that “subprime mortgages have been discredited
In this environment,” he wrote. “You also promoted derivatives and other forms of ‘financial innovation’ as a means of eliminating risk and making the financial system safer.”
“Again, you were wrong.”
Warren said that during the resulting financial crisis, “You appear to have put the interests of large financial institutions ahead of those of the American public.”
“Given the seven years you spent as a Morgan Stanley mergers and acquisitions executive before joining the George W. Bush administration, your eagerness to bail out Wall Street, including taxpayer-assisted megamergers, was not surprising,” Warren wrote.
“It has been well documented that you played a central role in helping arrange several (multibillion-dollar) bailouts and also obtained ethics waivers to deal directly with Morgan Stanley, which received special regulatory approval from the Fed on an expedited basis as needed to access additional emergency assistance.”
The senator said Warsh also advocated higher interest rates at the time, “further endangering the ailing economy” that was causing job losses.
“Your monetary policy record shows a repeated failure to accurately assess the impact of inflation on the American economy,” Warren wrote.
“You appear to have learned nothing from your failures,” he wrote.
“Since leaving the Fed, you have advocated for tough safeguards intended to prevent major bank failures and taxpayer bailouts.”
– CNBC matt peterson Contributed to this article.