Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said he expects Donald Trump to name a mainstream candidate to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, despite the president’s bashing of the US central bank leader for failing to cut interest rates this year.

“I would be quite surprised if he did not make a choice that fair-minded observers on both sides recognized as a reasonable person,” Summers said on Bloomberg Television’s Wall Street Weekwith David Westin. “I am considerably more confident than some” that Trump would make such a decision, thanks to the swift financial-market reactions to the news when it comes, he said.

Powell’s term as chair is up in May 2026, and Trump said this month his pick would be “coming out very soon.” In April, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said the timeline for interviewing candidates to succeed Powell was “sometime in the fall.” Bessent himself has emerged as a potential candidate on a list that includes former Fed board member Kevin Warsh, Bloomberg has reported.

Trump this week repeated his criticism of Powell and his colleagues for keeping benchmark rates unchanged, saying they should be at least 2 percentage points lower. During an event Wednesday, he also quipped, “Am I allowed to appoint myself at the Fed? I’d do a much better job than these people.”  READ MORE