President Donald Trump may have finalized his pick for the chair of the Federal Reserve.
Though the nominee is yet to be confirmed, it looks like the director of the White House’s National Economic Council Kevin Hassett may be the man Trump ends up picking.
Prediction market Kalshi on Wednesday put the odds of Hassett being nominated at 86 percent, compared with 6 percent for former Fed governor Kevin Warsh and 4 percent for sitting Fed governor Michelle Bowman.
Kevin Hassett is a prominent American economist, policy adviser, and academic widely known for his influential roles in U.S. economic policy. Born in the 1960s, Hassett earned a B.A. in economics from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Early in his career, he worked at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors as a senior economist and later taught economics and finance at Columbia Business School. He also became a senior fellow and research director at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank, where he focused on fiscal and tax policy, contributing significant research on economic growth and regulation.
Hassett gained national prominence when he co-authored the 1999 book Dow 36,000, which argued that U.S. stock-market valuations were substantially undervalued and would rise dramatically over time. While controversial and widely debated, the book established him as a bold economic thinker willing to challenge conventional perspectives.
In 2017, Hassett was appointed by then President Trump as the 29th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), serving until 2019. In this role, he advised the President on fiscal policy, taxation, trade, and economic growth strategies, and became a visible figure in media discussions on the U.S. economy. He returned to government service in 2025 as Director of the National Economic Council (NEC) under Trump’s second administration, where he helped shape broader economic policy, including tax, trade, and regulatory priorities.
Throughout his career, Hassett has been a frequent commentator and writer, contributing to public debates on taxation, regulation, and growth. Known for his pro-growth and conservative economic views, he has both supporters who praise his clear policy vision and critics who challenge some of his more ambitious predictions. His career demonstrates a blend of academic rigor, public policy influence, and high-profile economic commentary.
Hassett’s relationship with Trump may cause some to question the independence of the Federal Reserve. “I think that concerns regarding the Fed’s independence are very real and valid,” Anastassia Fedyk, an assistant professor of finance at the Haas School of Business of the University of California Berkeley, told Al Jazeera.
“It’s not just about Kevin Hassett being closer to President Trump than prior Fed chairs were to their nominating presidents. There is also the contextual background: the firing of Lisa Cook, the attempts to end Jerome Powell’s term early, and Kevin Hassett’s own stated approval for those attempts.”
Hassett’s potential nomination as Federal Reserve chair highlights both his extensive experience in economics and public policy, and the challenges that come with high-profile appointments.