Senate Confirms Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair 54-45; Powell Stays as Board Governor

The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Chair on May 13, 2026, in a 54-45 largely party-line vote, with Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman the sole crossover. Warsh, 56, a former Fed governor under George W. Bush, succeeds Jerome Powell, whose eight-year chairmanship ends May 15. In a break with tradition, Powell chose to remain on the Board as a regular governor — the first outgoing Fed chair in the modern era to do so — rather than departing entirely. JD Vance presided over the Senate chamber for the confirmation vote. Warsh has publicly signaled alignment with Trump’s preference for lower interest rates and has had prior contact with Trump’s economic team during the administration’s campaign against Powell.

This confirmation completes the economic-command-structure capture sequence documented across Capture Cascade Ch. 4. Trump has now installed loyalists at Treasury (Bessent, January 2025), Justice (Bondi, January 2025), and the Federal Reserve (Warsh, May 2026). The path to confirmation was cleared by the DOJ’s April 24, 2026 abandonment of its criminal probe of Powell (see 2026-04-24--doj-drops-powell-probe-clears-warsh-fed-confirmation), making this the first Fed chair selection in U.S. history directly conditioned on a prior executive-branch criminal investigation of the incumbent chair. Warsh’s confirmation gives the administration a rate-setting ally at the central bank heading into the 2026 midterm cycle, completing what the digest describes as the “economic-command-structure capture trifecta.”