Wall Street frets over Hassett as potential Fed chair
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bond-market investors worry that the leading candidate for Fed chair is too close to US President Donald Trump, while HSBC finally picks its new chair. Plus, the EU has a last-minute plan to fund Ukraine’s economic revival.
Mentioned in this podcast:
Bond investors warned US Treasury over picking Kevin Hassett as Fed chair
HSBC appoints Brendan Nelson as chair after chaotic search
Brussels floats ‘emergency’ powers to raise €210bn from Russian assets
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Today’s FT News Briefing was hosted and edited by Marc Filippino, and produced by Fiona Symon, Victoria Craig and Sonja Hutson. Our show was mixed by Kelly Garry. Additional help from Michael Lello. The FT’s acting co-head of audio is Topher Forhecz. The show’s theme music is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning from the Financial Times. |
| 0:04.0 | Today is Thursday, December 4th, and this is your FT News briefing. |
| 0:08.7 | Bond investors aren't thrilled with the leading Fed chair candidate, |
| 0:12.8 | and HSBC search for a chair is finally over. |
| 0:16.8 | Plus, the EU has a plan for frozen Russian assets, |
| 0:20.0 | but it's not going to make everyone happy. |
| 0:22.4 | One of the striking things that came out when the Commission made its proposal is that it will not require unanimity. |
| 0:30.9 | I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day. |
| 0:41.9 | Thank you. your day. Yesterday, we told you it might be a while until we know who will replace Federal Reserve |
| 0:46.4 | Chair Jay Powell when his term ends next May. |
| 0:49.1 | But Wall Street has a habit of being a bit jumpy. |
| 0:51.8 | And true to form, investors in the $30 trillion U.S. bond market |
| 0:55.2 | have already expressed deep concerns to the Treasury Department over the frontrunner, Kevin Hassett. |
| 1:00.5 | He's the White House's top economic official and has served as senior economic advisor to past Republican presidential campaigns. |
| 1:07.6 | Kate Dugget is the FTs editor and has the scoop on this. Hi, Kate. |
| 1:11.6 | Hi. |
| 1:12.5 | So first of all, what went down and when? |
| 1:16.8 | About two, three weeks ago prior to the final round of interviews with FedShare candidates, |
| 1:23.2 | the Treasury Department reached out to big bond investors to solicit some feedback about the |
| 1:30.1 | candidates that were going forward. |
| 1:32.4 | So this includes big Wall Street banks. |
| 1:35.2 | It includes big asset managers, among other institutions. |
... |
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