Senate confirms Kevin Warsh as Fed governor, setting up chair vote

The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by a 51-45 vote on May 12, 2026, with only Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman crossing party lines to support Trump's nominee. The close, mostly party-line vote was the first step in Warsh's path to replacing Jerome Powell as Fed chair; a separate Senate vote the following day confirmed Warsh as chair in a 54-45 vote. Warsh, a former Fed governor and Morgan Stanley executive, had publicly criticized the Fed's post-2008 quantitative easing as excessive and has close ties to the Trump White House.