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

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh declined to say Wednesday whether he has spoken to President Donald Trump since becoming chairman, but confirmed he is in regular communication with the Trump administration.

Warsh said, this will not affect his freedom.

Seven weeks into his tenure as Fed chair, Wersch is in a vulnerable position. Investors are trying to figure out where the Fed will take interest rates, as Warsh is lagging behind how the Fed talks about its plans. She was appointed by a President who said low interest rates were a litmus test for his choice of chair and has continued to call for cuts since Wersh’s confirmation. Any suggestion that Warsh did not speak honestly about his views could jeopardize his ability to bring the divided Federal Open Market Committee to a consensus on interest rates.

The White House declined to comment on any conversation between the president and the Fed chairman, saying it does not discuss any private presidential conversations that may or may not have occurred.

Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Fed spokesmen declined to comment.

At the hearing, Warsh repeatedly defended his independence and the credibility it gives him during two days of appearances before Congress, which began in the House on Tuesday and ended in the Senate on Wednesday.

“The independence of the Federal Reserve is sacrosanct,” Warsh said Tuesday. “Part of the Fed’s power doesn’t just come from a printing press, although that may be useful from time to time. It comes from our credibility, our credibility to make the best choices consistent with the law you’ve written for us.”

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

“Any central bank would be happy to see the data moving in the right direction. I believe these are all imperfect measures of the underlying inflation situation,” he said.

That view of inflation is a subject of debate within the Fed. Warsh has created a task force to review how the Fed thinks about inflation. But it is not certain that the Fed will accept the task force’s and Wersh’s views on the matter.

The FOMC appears divided on interest rates. Governor Christopher Waller and New York Federal Reserve Chairman 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 has an ally in the Trump administration. The White House has said the president defers to Wersch’s ideas about how to manage the Fed, although Trump still generally wants interest rates low.

As is a long-standing tradition, the Fed Chairman and the Treasury Secretary meet for a weekly breakfast.

Warsh has maintained that tradition with Besant and gone even further, he said on Wednesday.

“I meet with the Treasury Secretary weekly. In the meantime, I talk to him frequently.” He said that he would take his own decisions regarding interest rates.

Warsh and Besant have a mentor in investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who employed Warsh for more than a decade until he became Fed chairman. Besant worked for Druckenmiller as a hedge fund manager early in his career. Warsh and Besant did not overlap in working for Druckenmiller, but both knew each other well before taking their current jobs.

Warsh had said before becoming Fed chair that he wanted to negotiate a new Treasury-Fed agreement, referring to the 1951 agreement that established the Fed’s modern independence. Warsh said he wants to cede some authority over the Fed’s balance sheet to the Treasury secretary. He has not discussed those ideas in detail since becoming Fed chair and creating a task force that will review the Fed’s balance sheet policy.

Kevin Hassett, Trump’s top economic adviser, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday that he also recently spoke to Wersch. Hassett said he praised Warsh’s new task force when the two spoke.

Warsh declined to say under direct questioning from the Senate Banking Committee whether he had spoken to the President after becoming chairman. But he indicated that if he had spoken to the President it should not be seen as a problem.

“I certainly don’t feel uncomfortable getting a call from the chairman of this committee or the President of the United States,” Warsh said.

public calendar Powell met or called Besant only a few times outside of their regular breakfast meetings, the Fed’s release shows. There was only one such meeting in 2026, when Powell and Besant discussed the risks of artificial intelligence with bank CEOs in April.