President Donald Trump didn’t hold back Thursday when sharing his opinion of the Federal Reserve’s decision this week to hold interest rates steady for the first time since last July.
“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell again refused to cut interest rates, even though he has absolutely no reason to keep them so high,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “He is hurting our Country, and its National Security. We should have a substantially lower rate now that even this moron admits inflation is no longer a problem or threat.”
During his press conference Wednesday following the rate decision, which left the benchmark federal funds rate in a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, Fed Chair Powell offered a more nuanced take on the current state of consumer price inflation.
While acknowledging that upside risks to inflation and downside risks to employment have both “diminished” in recent months, he also cited the Fed’s assessment that annual inflation as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index stood at 2.9% in December, significantly above the central bank’s 2% target.
“We had 3% core PCE inflation over the 12 months ending in December,” Powell added, referring to the metric that strips out food and energy prices, “and that’s pretty much what we had the year before, so on net, no progress.”
Trump’s lengthy social media post — which touted the record $264 billion in tariff revenue the U.S. Treasury Department collected in 2025 — concluded with an all-caps declaration: “WE SHOULD BE PAYING LOWER INTEREST RATES THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!”
Considering Switzerland’s benchmark policy rate is currently set at 0%, Trump’s request is unlikely to be granted. But Powell’s successor as Fed chair will nonetheless be under pressure and scrutiny from Trump to heed his demands.
Warsh seen as likely pick
During a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday, Trump said he will unveil his choice “next week” for the nominee to succeed Powell as central bank chief when his term expires in May.
But later that evening, while attending a screening of a documentary about first lady Melania Trump, the president told reporters the nomination would be unveiled Friday morning, according to multiple news outlets.
Kellie Meyer, a Washington correspondent with the cable news network NewsNation, reported on X that Trump said the pick would be “a person that won’t be too surprising to people. A lot of people think that this person could have been there a few years ago.”
Those hints led online predictions markets to assume that Trump was referring to former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, who served at the central bank from 2006 to 2011. Trump first considered Warsh for the chair position in 2017, during his first term in the White House, before settling on Powell.
Earlier Thursday afternoon, the online prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket gave Warsh and BlackRock fixed-income executive Rick Rieder roughly the same 35% odds to become the nominee. But following the late-breaking news, Warsh’s odds surged to around 95% on both platforms.
Warsh reportedly met with Trump at the White House on Thursday, according to Reuters. And according to Bloomberg, the Trump administration has begun preparations to formally nominate Warsh, citing people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity.
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This story has been updated to include reporting on the shifting announcement timeline and nomination odds.
