Trump Picks Kevin Walsh to Lead the Federal Reserve (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: President Trump announced on Friday that he is nominating Kevin Walsh, a former Fed governor and a Wall Street alum, to serve as his next Fed chairman. Now, this is arguably the most important personnel decision that the president is going to make for the remainder of his term. The Fed chairman is very much involved, of course, in dealing with any sort of financial crises, but also dealing with setting interest rates, which, of course, impact every aspect of the economy. Now, the president posted this in part on Friday when announcing his decision. He said, Of course, central casting is something that is very important to the president. Look, this is kind of a win, of course, for Walsh, someone who President Trump has known for very long. I'd remind you that Trump actually passed over Walsh during his first term in selecting Jay Powell, the current Fed chairman, to serve in the role. Walsh met with President Trump on Thursday, and the decision came after Trump had really been deciding for weeks now who he wanted to go with. Many people thought that he might select his national economic director, Kevin Hassett, but recently the president said that he wanted to keep Hassett in the White House working with him. So, while Walsh is the man who is going to likely succeed Powell, he does need to be confirmed by the Senate.