STORY: :: Warsh says Trump never asked him to 'commit to any particular interest rate decision'

:: Washington, D.C. / April 21, 2026

KENNEDY: "Are you going to be the president's human sock puppet?"

WARSH: "Senator, absolutely not."

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:: Sen. John Kennedy, (R) Louisiana

"Can we agree that your credibility as Fed chairman is the most important thing you have?"

:: Kevin Warsh, Federal Reserve chief nominee

WARSH: "It's the most important thing to me. It's the most important thing, the institution. And it's the most important thing to the successful conduct of policy."

KENNEDY: "Okay, that's a yes, right?"

WARSH: "Yes."

KENNEDY: "The problem is that President Trump has said he's not going to appoint anybody who wouldn't agree to lower interest rates. Have you agreed with the president that you're going to lower interest rates?"

WARSH: "Senator, I'm glad you framed it that way. The president never asked me to predetermine, commit, fix, decide on any interest rate decision in any of our discussions, nor would I ever agree to do so."

KENNEDY: "So the president has never sat you down, looked you in the eye and said, here's the deal, Scooter. I'm going to appoint you. But you got to agree to lower interest rates. That didn't happen or did happen?"

WARSH: "The president never once asked me to commit to any particular interest rate decision, period, and nor would I ever agree to do so if he had. But he never did."

Warsh also asked about comments Trump made shortly before the start of the hearing in which the president said he would be disappointed if his Fed chief nominee did not get quick approval for rate cuts.

"Presidents tend to be for cutting rates ... President Trump expresses it quite publicly," said Warsh, who also skirted saying whether Trump's call for a Fed policy rate as low as 1%, a level usually associated with recession, would risk higher inflation.

Warsh has said rate cuts are nevertheless warranted because technological changes unleashed by artificial intelligence will raise productivity, a view other central bankers say may be true over time but won't necessarily make lowering rates appropriate in the short term.

The Fed has missed its 2% inflation goal for more than five years, first due to the shock of the pandemic but more recently due to the influence of Trump administration tariffs and the high oil prices linked to the war in the Middle East.

Warsh said during the hearing that he did not think Trump's tariffs fueled inflation.