For the second time in two days, President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would like to appoint Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to chair the Federal Reserve.
Yet Bessent keeps saying he doesn’t want the job, Trump added, in comments to the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum.
“We’re thinking about him for the Fed, but he wants no part of it, he likes being secretary of the Treasury,” Trump said. “I think we’ll leave him — so let’s cross your name off right, officially, right?”
Bessent is heading up the Trump administration’s search for a new Fed chair. Yet despite his protestations, he is also widely seen as a leading potential replacement for Powell.
“He’s a top-tier candidate right now,” Stephen Moore, a senior economic adviser to Trump in his first term, said. Trump “wants to shake things up, so I think he wants an outsider.”
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Associated Press Writer Fatima Hussein contributed to this report.
