Name: Trump implies Kevin Hassett will not be the choice for Fed chair
Uploaded: 2026-01-16T17:25:04.918Z
Duration: 2 min 56 s
Description: Kevin Hassett’s odds of becoming Fed chair drop after President Donald Trump says he wants to keep him in his current post.

Kevin Hassett’s odds of becoming Fed chair drop after President Donald Trump says he wants to keep him in his current post.

Washington

President Trump publicly praised Kevin Hassett for his performance and communication skills, stating he would prefer to keep Hassett in his current position rather than appoint him as the next Federal Reserve chair. This statement led to a decline in prediction market odds for Hassett's selection.

Other candidates, such as Walsh, have seen their chances improve, with Walsh noted for his experience and alignment with the administration's views. The announcement of the next Fed chair is anticipated soon, as the current chair's term ends in May and a new governor role must be filled by the end of January.

Trump implies Kevin Hassett will not be the choice for Fed chair

He moves in the odds, Kevin Hassett odds plunging. Here's what the president said just moments ago at the White House. Listen. I see Kevin's in the audience and I just want to thank you. You were fantastic on television today. I actually want to keep you where you are if you want to know the truth. Kevin Hassett is so good. I'm saying, wait a minute, if I move him, these Fed guys, certainly the one we have now, they don't talk much. I would lose you. It's a serious concern to me. So it would appear that his odds just went down of becoming the next Fed chair because Trump was praising him. Here's Kelshi. Look at that move. And big move lower. Hard to make out there, though. But I see. OK, so worse. Worse. Just moved up big. Yeah. Fifty nine percent. And and Waller, I would think, would move up a bit on this as well if he's still in the running. You know, it's ironic. Kevin has been maybe auditioning on these television interviews and he's doing such a good job that, you know, Trump made the right maybe makes the right call here saying, well, the Fed, the Fed speakers don't really do interviews and they don't talk about our administration and they don't talk about how good the economy is. So maybe we've got to keep you where you are for communication's sake. Interesting that he let that out. Yeah, that was when. Do we know? Do we have a general idea of when we're going to hear this? Pretty soon. So the one date we're watching is. So January 31st is when the Stephen Myron Fed governor role is up. And so the thinking was and the reporting is that he will announce his Fed chair as the new Fed governor in that spot to come into the Fed, even though they don't assume the role of chair until the end of May, which is when Powell's is over. So chair is over, although he may stay on. But they have this governor role to fill. And I think the thinking was that they were going to fill it with whoever's going to be the next Fed chair. And that's why it's really heating up and why we could get, I mean, any day now, right in the next few weeks. An announcement. We need to know about Walsh. I mean, Walsh is obviously someone that the president likes. He's had a lot of experience, both. He's been a Fed governor before and he's also worked in, you know, in the hedge fund worlds and Druckenmiller and has a lot of respect on especially the right side of the aisle. Look, in the past, some of his monetary views have been on the more hawkish side, which is interesting because he's definitely changing his tune now. And we know the president isn't going to appoint someone who's hawkish and wants higher rates. But he was critical of the Fed, both in monetary policy around things like QE, but also in the structure of the Fed. And we know that that is something that resonates with Secretary Besant and President Trump, who has also been just very critical around the structure of the Fed. As you take a look at sort of the four candidates that we are aware of, of course, Mr. Walsh is well on the lead when it comes to these prediction markets. Half his interviews are just too good. He's hurting himself. He's a big defender of the administration and clearly the president said he would regret if he left that role.

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