Trump's pick to lead the Federal Reserve meets GOP senator holding up his confirmation

President Donald Trump's Federal Reserve chair nominee, Kevin Warsh, will meet Tuesday with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., the Republican who has been holding up his nomination amid GOP concerns tied to a criminal probe involving Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

Tillis told Fox News Digital he supports Warsh, whom Trump tapped in January, but said he wants the Powell investigation resolved before he can vote to move the nomination forward.

On Jan. 11, Powell confirmed that the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation into his congressional testimony related to the renovation of the Federal Reserve's two historic main buildings on Washington, D.C.'s National Mall. 

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"I have very few questions. I'm a real fan of [Warsh] and I'm hoping we can get disposed of the Powell investigation, so I'd be in a position to vote for him," Tillis told Fox News Digital.

"I have no problems at all with him. I'm looking forward to meeting him, because, like I said, I've been a fan," he added.

Tillis has vowed to block any Federal Reserve nominee until the Trump administration concludes its criminal probe involving Powell. As a member of the Senate Banking Committee, his hold is especially consequential. Overriding it would require a discharge vote on the Senate floor, an extraordinary step that needs 60 votes and is widely seen as a long shot.

Trump tapped Warsh to succeed Powell, whose term as chair ends in May, but he must first win Senate confirmation by a simple majority — a process that typically starts with a hearing and vote in the Senate Banking Committee.

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Warsh’s potential ascent to the top of the world’s most powerful central bank comes at a turbulent moment for the Federal Reserve. 

With the Justice Department conducting a criminal probe involving Powell, the Supreme Court weighing limits on the Fed’s independence, and rising cost-of-living pressures testing Trump’s economic agenda, the stakes for the next chair are intensifying.

What began as tension over interest-rate policy has spiraled into a broader confrontation, marking one of the most challenging stretches of Powell’s eight-year tenure leading the Fed.

Powell called the DOJ investigation "unprecedented" in a video statement and another example of what he described as Trump's ongoing threats lobbed at the central bank. His unusually public response, after days of private consultation with advisors, marked a sharp departure from his typically measured approach.

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Powell, widely viewed as one of the most crisis-tested Federal Reserve chairs in modern U.S. history, built his career as a lawyer and investment banker in New York before entering public service in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. 

He joined the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors in 2012 and was nominated by Trump to lead the central bank in 2017.

Like Powell, Warsh is not an economist by training. Instead, he brings a background in law and finance that has shaped his views on the Federal Reserve.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University in 1992 and a law degree from Harvard in 1995. He built his career at Morgan Stanley and, at 35, became the youngest person to serve on the Fed’s board in 2006.

Though he stepped down in 2011, he was widely recognized as the Fed’s key liaison to Wall Street during the 2008 financial crisis. He previously worked in the Bush administration as a special assistant to the president for economic policy and executive secretary at the National Economic Council.

Warsh was among Trump's leading candidates to replace Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen in 2017. However, Trump ultimately appointed Powell to the role.