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WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

Donald Trump’s ‘Central Casting’ Pick for the Federal Reserve

WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

The Wall Street Journal

News, Society & Culture

4.22.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With Donald Trump citing education, looks, and thoughts on cutting interest rates, Kevin Warsh emerged as his choice for chairman of the Federal Reserve. Will Senator Thom Tillis stick to his promise to block any nominee until the Jerome Powell investigation concludes? Plus, Republicans lose a reliable state Senate seat in Texas, which could indicate Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement is backfiring.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I think the potential of Agenic is to rethink how work gets done overall. It challenges all sorts of traditional orthodoxies around how organizations execute the work at hand. That's Jason Gersatus, CEO of Deloitte U.S., talking about the transformational potential of A.Gentic AI. Join him later to learn why agents are a game changer for businesses across industries.

0:25.6

From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

0:31.8

President Trump makes his choice for the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. He is a former Fed governor and Wall

0:39.6

Street denizen Kevin Warsh. So how have the markets, both financial and political, responded to

0:47.1

that choice? Plus, Republicans lose a state Senate seat in Texas that normally would not be of

0:53.5

note. But when you lose a safe seat by 14

0:56.9

points, it means a 31 point swing away from your party as recently as 2024. Something is up.

1:05.4

What does it tell us about what might happen in November? Welcome to Potomac Watch, our daily

1:10.3

political podcast of the Wall Street

1:12.5

Journal Opinion Pages. I'm Paul as you go, and I'm here with Joe Sternberg and Kim Strassel.

1:18.8

First, let's take up the announcement Friday that Kevin Warsh is Trump's choice to replace Jerome Powell

1:25.2

as head of the central bank when Powell steps down when his term

1:30.7

ends in May. Warsh still must be confirmed by the Senate and more on that logistical exercise in a bit.

1:39.2

But let's listen to President Trump on Friday answer a question about Warsh.

1:43.6

I want to keep it nice and pure, but he certainly wants to cut rates.

1:47.6

I've been watching him for a long time.

1:49.0

Did you have any concerns about his hawkish history of pushing for rate hikes?

1:54.8

He's going to want to do the same thing.

1:56.8

I think that, yeah, I've had times when I think you've had to really have rate hikes too.

2:02.1

But he's very smart, very good, strong, young, pretty young, and I think he's going to do that.

2:10.4

I mean, he was the central casting guy that people wanted.

2:14.1

Kevin was great.

...

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