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Economy

Scott Bessent Said It’s ‘Up to the President’ on Whether to Sue Fed Chair Pick Over Interest Rates

Sen. Elizabeth Warren pressed Bessent on a comment Trump made last weekend about suing Kevin Warsh if he doesn’t lower rates.

Scott Bessent

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) Ben Curtis/AP

By Jade Lozada

February 5, 2026 12:03 PM

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to pledge Thursday that President Donald Trump’s Federal Reserve chair pick, Kevin Warsh, would not face a federal criminal investigation if he does not comply with the president’s demands to cut interest rates.

“This should be an easy one, Mr. Secretary. Can you commit here and now that Trump’s Fed nominee Kevin Warsh will not be sued, will not be investigated by the Department of Justice if he doesn’t cut interest rates exactly the way that Donald Trump wants?” Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.

“I– I– that is up to the president,” Bessent said.

Warren, the committee’s top Democrat, interjected with a repeat of the question, which concerned comments Trump reportedly made at a private dinner Saturday that he might sue Warsh if he does not lower rates.

“That was supposed to be the softball,” Warren told Bessent.

“It was a joke, and he made a joke about you, too, Sen. Warren. It got a lot of laughs, got a lot of laughs,” Bessent replied. “Mr. Warsh is highly qualified. Why don’t you tell the nation what you told me — that you held up Chair Powell’s nomination?”

For months, Trump has said publicly that he wants the next Fed Chair to slash rates and expressed contempt for the current chair, Jerome Powell’s, refusal to do so. The Fed Board of Governors voted to maintain rates at 3.5% to 3.75% last week.

Powell is the subject of a criminal probe by the Department of Justice, which he decried as political retaliation to lower rates. The DOJ alleges that Powell lied before Congress in a Senate hearing about a multibillion-dollar renovation of historic Fed office buildings. Trump has criticized the project as too expensive, though he said he is not involved in the probe.

Multiple Republican senators have said that they will block the confirmation process until the DOJ closes the investigation into Powell. Sen. Thom Tillis said at the hearing that he does not believe Powell committed a crime when the Fed chair testified before the Banking Committee.

However, Tillis said that he liked Warsh as a potential pick.