President Trump is unlikely to nominate Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen for a second term next year and is leaning towards replacing her with National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, according to a report Tuesday.
Politico, citing four people close to the decision-making process, reported if Cohn decides he wants to leave the White House for the Fed, Trump would nominate him to do so.
Cohn is a Democrat and former president of Goldman Sachs. He is not a monetary policy specialist and would be the first Fed chair in four decades who isn’t an economist.
Cohn denied interest in the Fed job in a recent interview. “No, I have a great job right now,” he told CNBC. “Serving the president has been a dream come true.”
Yellen, the first-ever woman to chair the Fed, will testify before Congress for two days beginning Wednesday on the central bank’s semi-annual monetary report.
She was nominated by former President Barack Obama and has served since 2014.
Yellen’s term expires in February, and though Trump could renominate her, he had been highly critical of her during the 2016 campaign.
During a press conference at Fed headquarters last month, Yellen declined to speculate about her future.
“So, what I’ve said about my own situation is that I fully intend to serve out my term as chair, which ends in early February,” Yellen said. “I have not had conversations with the president about future plans.”
Under Yellen, the central bank has been slowly raising interest rates as part of its effort to end nearly a decade of stimulus measures beginning during the recession that started with the 2008 financial crisis.
