Former U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Larry Lindsey has removed his name from consideration for the Fed Chair post, according to a new CNBC article.
“I have a very full varied and enjoyable life right now that I don’t want to give up to go through the mill of public life,” Lindsey told CNBC via text message.
Scott Bessent, the 79th Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, announced in July on Bloomberg Television that the Trump administration was officially starting the process of finding a successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
“There’s a formal process that’s already starting … There are a lot of good candidates inside and outside the Federal Reserve,” Bessent told Bloomberg’s Jonathan Ferro at the time.
Then, President Donald Trump persisted in demanding that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell be investigated in connection with a projected $2.5 billion makeover to the Federal Reserve headquarters.
Government Shifts & Trump Admin Trends
Bessent interviewed Lindsey as one of the applicants. A list of potential successors to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whose tenure ends in May, has been under consideration by President Donald Trump.
“It’s OK with me. I think he’s terrible,” Trump told reporters, referring to Powell. “I call him ‘Too Late.’ “He’s always late. But he wasn’t late with Biden before the election, he was cutting [rates] like crazy.”
Powell and President Trump met at the White House prior to the June Fed meeting to discuss the country’s inflation, employment, and economic conditions as well as the Fed’s reluctance to lower interest rates. Although the Fed’s account was accurate, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump pressured Powell to decrease rates, confirming the Powell meeting.
“The President did say that he believes the Fed Chair is making a mistake by not lowering interest rates, which is putting us at an economic disadvantage to China and other countries,” Leavitt said in a briefing with the press. “The President’s been very vocal about that, both publicly and now I can reveal privately as well.”
In September 2025, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 25 basis points, bringing the federal funds rate’s target range down to 4.00% to 4.25%. Concerns about the deteriorating job market prompted this rate drop, which was the first in nine months. Additionally, policymakers hinted that additional cuts might be anticipated in the latter part of 2025.
Former President Donald Trump’s White House economic advisory group included Larry Lindsey, the Director of President George W. Bush’s National Economic Council, to help address the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. According to a Politico article dating back to 2020, Lindsey’s previous expressions of contempt for the president made the news unexpected at the time of the announcement years ago.
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