Before President Donald Trump officially tapped Kevin Warsh as chair of the Federal Reserve, some inside the MAGA administration had already written him off.
According to a detailed report in The Wall Street Journal, senior Trump officials privately mocked Warsh as desperate and “finished” as he campaigned for the job, which the publication called “one of the most public personnel contests of Trump’s second term.”
“It would take 14 months, a reality-television-style public audition, a bitter behind-the-scenes campaign, and a criminal investigation of the sitting Fed chair” for Warsh to officially be named Trump’s new Fed chair, the Journal wrote Friday.
But according to the publication, that didn’t come without a brutal round of infighting among Trump administration officials.
“Inside the White House, some officials had written off Warsh entirely,” the Journal reported. “One senior administration official told The Wall Street Journal in early December that Warsh was finished, comparing him to a Venezuelan drug smuggler trying to cling to a boat after U.S. forces had fired on him.”
Another official dismissed Warsh as a “used-car salesman,” arguing that Trump believed Warsh “wanted the job too much.”
While attention inside the administration appeared to be shifting toward National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, who the Journal reported believed by late 2025 that he had secured the nomination, Warsh had something Hassett didn’t: deep backing from Wall Street.
“Wall Street insiders began calling administration officials to make the case for Warsh, with the explicit goal of edging Hassett out of contention, according to people familiar with the outreach,” the Journal stated. “The campaign was focused on the argument that Hassett was too close to Trump to have credibility with bond markets as an independent Fed chair.”
It was a “quiet campaign that could easily have backfired,” the Journal added.
But Trump made the decision official Friday morning, praising Warsh as “central casting” and declaring on social media that he would “never let you down.”