{"id":18667,"date":"2026-02-05T18:01:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T18:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/bessent-refuses-to-say-the-administration-will-not-sue-the-next-fed-chair\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T18:01:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T18:01:38","slug":"bessent-refuses-to-say-the-administration-will-not-sue-the-next-fed-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/bessent-refuses-to-say-the-administration-will-not-sue-the-next-fed-chair\/","title":{"rendered":"Bessent refuses to say the administration will not sue the next Fed chair"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday left open the possibility the administration could sue President Donald Trump\u2019s pick for Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, if he doesn\u2019t deliver on the president\u2019s desired interest rate cuts.<\/p>\n

Trump said Saturday he would consider suing Warsh if he did not cut interest rates. The Fed is an independent agency.<\/p>\n

When asked by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during a Senate Banking Committee hearing about the possibility of a lawsuit, Bessent refused to answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is up to the president,\u201d he said, before adding: \u201cWarsh is highly qualified.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration, including Bessent, has been sharply critical of the Fed and its current Chair Jerome Powell for its interest rate policy and its handling of a building renovation. The Department of Justice is investigating<\/a> Powell in relation to the renovation, moves Powell has called \u201cpretexts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bessent furthered that criticism Thursday, saying Treasury cannot print \u201cmagic money\u201d to solve some of the nation\u2019s economic issues \u2014 referring to the Fed\u2019s ability to expand the amount of money in circulation, a power both Bessent and Warsh say has been overused.<\/p>\n

The comments echo remarks Bessent made in a fiery House hearing<\/a> Wednesday. \u201cThe Fed has lost accountability,\u201d he said. \u201cIt lost the trust of the American people when it allowed the greatest inflation in 49 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has said he will not vote<\/a> for Warsh until the Powell probe is resolved, said senators had already heard from Powell about the cost overruns.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Powell] was testifying and we didn\u2019t see a crime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There were multiple moments of tension between the Treasury secretary and Democratic senators Thursday, similar to Wednesday\u2019s at-times rocky House meeting.<\/p>\n

Bessent took shots at Warren, with whom he has feuded publicly in the past. When she asked why he had previously written that tariffs would be inflationary \u2014 an economic effect he and the administration argue is not at play today \u2014 he answered that he is not always right.<\/p>\n

\u201cA year before [writing that letter to investors], I also wrote that I thought Senator Warren would be the Democratic presidential nominee. So my predictions have been bad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In one line of questioning from multiple senators, Bessent was asked how he, as acting director of the Internal Revenue Service, would handle the president\u2019s $10 billion dollar lawsuit against the tax agency<\/a>, filed last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a Justice department matter,\u201d he said. \u201cI will follow the law.\u201d He acknowledged that if the president were to be successful, the funds would come out of the Treasury General Account, the checking account of the government that he oversees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday left open the possibility the administration could sue President Donald Trump\u2019s pick for Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, if he doesn\u2019t deliver on the president\u2019s desired interest rate cuts. Trump said Saturday he would consider suing Warsh if he did not cut interest rates. The Fed is an independent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}