Could Fed Chair Powell’s Successor Be…Jerome Powell?

President Donald Trump’s public campaign to influence the Federal Reserve could backfire, leaving a central banker that Trump has sharply criticized in charge of a key policy committee for another term.

Chair Jerome Powell could legally remain on the policy committee after his term as chair officially ends in May. However, Fed watchers considered it remote until recently. Tensions between the president and the Fed chair flared in recent weeks—sparking speculation that Powell could remain on the Federal Open Market Committee after his chairmanship ends, or even continue as chair.

With Trump actively and publicly seeking the next Fed chair, Powell’s tenure on the Fed will likely be a hot-button topic at his post-FOMC press conference next week.

“We think it is now more likely that Powell will stay on as a governor to help protect the Fed after his term as chair ends,” Krishna Guha, vice chair of Evercore ISI, wrote in a research note.

Fed’s Independence At Stake

Congress designed the Federal Reserve to operate outside direct control of the White House.

Lawmakers wanted the Fed to be independent so it could make monetary policy decisions without considering politics. In countries with less independent central banks, heads of state often push interest rates lower, boosting the economy in the short run but stoking inflation in the long run.

Since his inauguration, Trump has publicly pressured the central bank’s policy committee to sharply cut rates. Trump contends that a lower fed funds rate would help household budgets by lowering mortgage and other loan borrowing costs, and would help the federal budget by reducing interest payments on the national debt.

The Fed cut interest rates three times at its last three meetings to boost the economy and help out the faltering job market. However, Fed officials are widely expected to hold rates steady for the time being, out of concern that inflation is still higher than the Fed’s goal of a 2% annual rate and did not make much progress in 2025.

Tensions between the president and the central bank intensified after the administration pursued legal actions against Fed leaders, moves the White House says are rooted in legal and ethical concerns rather than political retaliation.

Fed Chair Powell, Part 2

Powell’s term as chair ends in May, while his term as governor doesn’t end until 2028. Historically, chairs have stepped down from the remainder of their term as governor when their leadership term expires, but are not required to do so.

If Powell chose to remain on the Fed as a governor, it wouldn’t be the first time a Fed chair has done so: Marriner S. Eccles (the namesake of the Fed’s headquarters building) remained a governor in 1951 after he was replaced as chair by President Harry Truman.

In his current role, Powell is both the chair of the Fed’s governing board and the chair of the FOMC, which sets interest rates. The two jobs are technically two different positions: chairmanship of the Fed board is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, while the FOMC itself votes for its own chair. Historically, the FOMC has always voted to make the board chair the FOMC chair also.

The FOMC could vote to keep him as its chair even if he is no longer the chair of the Fed’s board of governors. That’s more likely if the Senate does not confirm Trump’s nominee to chair the Fed, Deutsche Bank economists wrote in a commentary. At least one key Republican lawmaker has threatened to block Trump’s nominee if the president does not drop his legal pressure on Powell.

Trump, who appointed Powell to the top Fed job in 2018, has frequently criticized and insulted Powell, expressing a desire to remove the central banker from his position. This week, Trump addressed the possibility of Powell staying on the job, saying he wasn’t worried about it.

“If that happens, his life won’t be very happy,” he told CNBC.