President Donald Trump, who has said repeatedly that he wants to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, said on Wednesday that he’ll soon name a new chair and that he is currently reviewing “three or four names” of candidates. At an event at the Kennedy Center, Trump said the contenders are “all good, all great.”
One of the candidates on the short list for Fed Chairman is Marc Sumerlin, an economist who worked in the George W. Bush administration and close friend of Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is reportedly providing the names to Trump.
On CNBC this week, Sumerlin confirmed that he’s on the list and said he “got a call last Wednesday that said there was going to be a list [and] I was going to be on it. That’s as much as I know right now.” He added, “I’m waiting for more guidance on where we go from here.”
Economist Sumerlin confirms he's in the running for Fed chair, backs big interest rate cut https://t.co/fC0KIRxx9H
— CNBC (@CNBC) August 14, 2025
Financial analyst Jim Bianco of the investment research firm Bianco Research in Chicago, shared his thoughts on the list on social media.
Bianco wrote: “Many of the names being floated like Sumerlin (and I would add Reider [sic], Zervos, current, and former Fed officials) have ties to Bessent and are intended to make it appear like an exhaustive process. In other words, Bessent is ‘throwing a bone’ to friends to get some attention for their businesses.”
Marc Summerlin was a former economist in the W. Bush administration. He had very "interesting" comments on CNBC this morning about being on the short list for Fed Chairman.
— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) August 14, 2025
From CNBC:
[Summerlin] noted he is close friends with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has taken a… https://t.co/SXGxG4KEDJ
Bianco added: “As Trump said yesterday, it sounds like he has already made up his mind, and none of these ‘filler’ names are even being invited to the White House for an interview. And since Bessent is providing the ‘filler’ names … could it be that Trump talked Bessent into taking the job as Fed Chairman?”
Other contenders for Powell’s job, if the replacement isn’t already decided, include former Fed Governors Kevin Warsh and Larry Lindsey, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman, former St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and market strategists David Zervos and Rick Rieder.
[Note: In 2018, Sumerlin declined an approach to be President Trump’s nominee to the Federal Reserve Board. Powell’s term ends in May 2026.]
