Apr. 21, 2026, 3:33 PM EDT

Kevin Warsh, President Donald”https://www.ms.now/news/trump-names-kevin-warsh-as-next-federal-reserve-chair?_thumbnail_id=1163350″>Trump’s pick to chair the Federal Reserve, told lawmakers Tuesday that he would not capitulate to Trump’s demands, saying he does not see outward political pressure as a threat to the central bank’s independence.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Trump’s millionaire nominee faced scathing questions from Banking Committee Democrats over perceived gaps in his financial disclosures and his ability to maintain the central bank’s integrity. When pressed to divulge his stance on political questions outside of the bank’s jurisdiction, he refused, saying instead that “the Fed must stay in its lane.”

Warsh used his opening remarks to convey a simple but significant argument to the senators who will decide whether he is fit to steward America’s monetary policy: Political pressure is not a threat to the central bank — opining on fiscal and social policies outside of its purview is.

The insulation of the Fed from politics was widely expected to be the defining issue of Warsh’s confirmation hearing, given that the president who appointed him has made no secret of his belief that the White House should have greater control over the nation’s monetary policies.

Testifying under oath Tuesday, Warsh said Trump never asked him to “predetermine, commit, fix or decide on any interest rate decision in any of our discussions.”

“Nor would I ever agree to do so if he had,” Warsh said.

Warsh’s declarations might wind up being beside the point when it comes to whether he’s confirmed to replace the man currently in the job.

After the Justice Department subpoenaed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and accused him of knowingly misleading Congress about the ongoing $2.5 billion building renovation project at the Fed’s Washington headquarters, retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina vowed to block the confirmation of any Fed chair nominee until the DOJ dropped its investigation.

The subpoena came amid Trump’s public pressure campaign against Powell over his refusal to slash interest rates. His attacks included multiple threats to fire Powell and the Justice Department’s effort to pursue a criminal case against him.

Tillis decried the Justice Department’s Powell probe during his allotted time Tuesday. He focused on the potential the investigation has to delay Powell’s exit from his post as Federal Reserve chairman in May rather than the ethics of the probe itself, which he has publicly questioned in the past.

Powell has said he has no intention of leaving the central bank’s board until the DOJ drops the investigation, even though his term ends May 15. He can stay past May because he also serves as a member of the Fed’s board of governors, his term for which does not end until January 2028.

Praising Warsh for his background as an economist, Tillis made clear his “no” vote is not personal to Warsh. Tillis told MS NOW ahead of the hearing that he has spoken to the White House about his intention to vote against Warsh.

Warsh, a favorite among Republican circles and the son-in-law of billionaire Trump donor Ronald Laudertried to persuade lawmakers that he is not a reflection of the president who appointed him.

“I do not believe that independence of monetary policy is threatened when elected officials state their views on rates,” the former Morgan Stanley investment banker said in his opening remarks. “Fed independence is up to the Fed.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the committee’s highest-ranking Democrat, pressed Warsh on what she said were “secrets” in the financial disclosures he provided to the Office of Government Ethics ahead of the hearing. Warsh disclosed assets worth more than $100 million — including stakes in the prediction market platform Polymarket and Elon Musk’s SpaceX — but did not name the underlying holdings of his largest investments.

“If you can’t answer these questions, you don’t have the courage and you don’t have the independence,” Warren said after Warsh refused to say whether his undisclosed individual investments are tied to the Trump family, declined to answer a question about whether Trump lost the 2020 election and repeatedly demurred when she challenged him to name a policy point on which he disagreed with Trump.

Warsh said he would divest his undisclosed assets if confirmed, which would put him in compliance with the requirements of the ethics office. Doubling down on his bid to convince the panel of lawmakers that he will not yield to the president’s repeated calls for lower interest rates, Warsh said he is not Trump’s “sock puppet,” the term Warren used.

“Someone here is lying then,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said of Warsh’s claim that Trump never asked him to cut interest rates. “It’s either you or President Trump.” Gallego pointed to reporting from The Wall Street Journal in December that Trump pressed his nominee to “support interest rate cuts” when nominating him to lead the Fed.

In a live phone interview with CNBC the morning of the hearing, Trump said he would be disappointed if Warsh does not immediately slash rates upon his confirmation.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., previously joined Tillis in expressing concern over the motivations behind the probe. Warren called on her Republican colleagues to block Warsh’s nomination until the investigation comes to an end.

A federal judge quashed the investigation, which had become central to Trump’s  smear campaign against Powellin March. In April, the same judge denied the Trump administration’s bid to revive the subpoenas he dismissed, writing that “the Government served these subpoenas on the [Federal Reserve] Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning.” Despite the blow, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is still fighting to keep the investigation alive.

The banking committee, which oversees Fed nominations, has a narrow 13-11 Republican majority.

Warsh stumbled while answering questions from Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., about how he would grade the economy for working Americans. Rather than offer a serious answer about the Fed’s role in shaping the economic outlook for consumers, Warsh made a joke about grade inflation at elite universities.

Several staffers and some committee members could be seen chuckling behind him.

“Well the Americans that I talk to, particularly in the state of Georgia, who haven’t had the benefit of attending some of these elite institutions, are trying to make their lives work,” Warnock replied. “They’re sitting around their kitchen tables trying to figure out how to put their kids through school, and regardless of how the markets are doing, consumer confidence is at a record low. So that’s their grade on the economy.”

Warsh previously served as a Federal Reserve governor in the early 2000s, after being nominated by then-President George W. Bush.

Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.

Apr. 21, 2026, 12:17 PM EDT

The public universities in Tennessee certainly warrant attention from the Tennessee General Assembly. However, with the recent passage of what they’re calling the “Charlie Kirk Act,” my Republican colleagues in the legislature continue to abuse their supermajority. This latest bill of theirs, which would punish students who signal their displeasure to guest speakersdoes nothing to help those struggling with the rising cost of tuition. Nor does it do anything to address a job market that looks increasingly bleak for recent graduates.

Instead the bill, named for the Turning Point USA founder who was assassinated while speaking on a Utah campus in September, is the latest item on a conservative legislative agenda that has stifled free expression in our institutions of higher learning.

My colleagues have already criminalized “divisive concepts,” which has emboldened students to record and report their professors for teaching about topics such as racial and social justice. Not to be outdone by their previous bad ideas and bigotry, those same Republicans have advanced the Charlie Kirk Act to more thoroughly eviscerate the First Amendment by severely restricting the ability of college students to demonstrate and to register their dissent.

These legislators’ extremist bill, which passed both chambers and has been sent to Gov. Bill Lee’s deskshould terrify us all. In part, it mandates suspensions for coordinated walkouts by students and banners they might display in protest of a speaker. This law does nothing to promote dialogue, nor does it make our campuses better spaces for tough conversations. Instead, it tilts power in protecting certain acceptable forms of “free speech” against others and weaponizes state authority to silence those who wish to demonstrate an alternative to the views being platformed.

Even though the Republicans behind this measure proclaim what they call Kirk’s love of debate and differing opinions, this bill would make it harder to engage in constructive difference through protest and dissent, despite such protest being a time-honored tradition of American student movements. But let’s be honest, Kirk was not someone “who encouraged everyone to love others,” as Rep. Gino Bulso, my Republican colleague who sponsored the bill, would have you believe. Kirk proudly trumpeted racist views that included calling the Civil Rights Act a mistakecalling Martin Luther King Jr. an “awful” person and questioning  Black people’s qualifications and achievementsparticularly those of Black women in elevated positions such as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Nothing about how Kirk lived his life was “civil” or “neutral” or aligned with the values of democracy and justice for all.

As I told my Republican colleagues on the floor, “It’s ironic that this body is talking about free speech when we had professors in Tennessee schools expelled and suspended when they did not mourn the death of Charlie Kirk, when they said that his statements were problematic, and that the way he died did not redeem the way he lived.” This bill is hypocrisy at its worst. It would punish those who engage in speech that challenges power and uplifts moral courage in the face of pressure. At the same time, it would protect state-sanctioned discrimination.

Free speech is not just the right to engage in favored speech, it is also the unobstructed right to engage in moral dissent. This is what my Republican colleagues are so terrified of, and what they want to silence. Students who engage in protests are a vital part of American history, especially here in Tennessee. In the 1960s, students sat down as a way of standing up to Jim Crow, and through continued disruption made our state capital, Nashville, the first Southern city to desegregate its lunch counters. College students in Nashville — including the late Rep. John LewisBernard Lafayette, who died last monthand Diane Nash — are the model of what standing up for free speech, democracy and dissent looks like.

Their legacy is one of many reasons we should be promoting nonviolent protest at our colleges and universities, not discouraging it. Hopefully, this blatantly unconstitutional law will be struck down by the courts and serve as a warning to all government officials promoting censorship that protesters will not be silent and that those demanding racial and social justice will not be dragged backward in history.

Rep. Justin Jones is the youngest Black lawmaker in Tennessee and represents the people of House District 52 in Nashville, one of the most diverse districts in state