Senate confirms Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair

• Key insight: The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as Fed chair in a largely party-line 54-45 vote.
• What's at stake: Warsh has pledged to keep monetary policy independent despite sustained pressure from President Donald Trump for lower interest rates.
• Forward look: Warsh takes the helm of the Fed as inflation metrics continue to climb, driven largely by rising energy prices related to the war with Iran. That reality will create tension between the Fed's price-stability mandate and Trump's demands for rate cuts.

WASHINGTON ? The Senate has confirmed Kevin Warsh as the chairman of the Federal Reserve in a 54-45 vote.

Warsh will become the chairman of the Fed, replacing Jerome Powell, the embattled Fed chairman who has been the subject of an investigation by the Department of Justice that almost waylaid Warsh's confirmation. Warsh was confirmed to serve on the Fed board on Tuesday.

Powell has said that he will stay on as Fed governor after his term as chair expires, setting up an unusual situation on the board. Fed chairs almost always resign their board seats upon the confirmation of a successor. Powell's time leading the central bank had largely been characterized by his being pilloried by President Trump over his unwillingness to lower rates as low as Trump would want. Powell maintains that the central bank's independence to maintain price stability is critical to the health of the global economy.

"I worry that these attacks are battering the institution and putting at risk the thing that really matters to the public, which is the ability to conduct monetary policy without taking into consideration political factors," Powell said last month.

Warsh, for his part, is expected to make significant changes at the Fed. He's promised that he would curb the Federal Open Market Committee's forward guidance, which he said was not always helpful in creating realistic market expectations for future actions.

All Republicans voted in favor of Warsh's appointment, along with one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., did not vote.

Warsh as Fed chairman will navigate the central bank's monetary policy through a difficult time. Inflation is rising, especially as the war with Iran drives up gas prices, yet Trump has insisted on lower interest rates, even jokingly threatening to sue Warsh if he doesn't acquiesce to his demands.

In his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Banking Committee, Warsh promised to keep the Fed's monetary policy politically independent, although he said the opposite of the central bank's decisions on bank policy.

"The President never, generally or specifically, instructed me [or] suggested I should commit to any interest rate path whatsoever," Warsh said. "I will be an independent actor if confirmed as chair of the Federal Reserve."

Warsh in the past has been an outspoken critic of the Fed, despite being the youngest Fed governor in history when former President George W. Bush appointed him to the Fed board in 2006 when Warsh was just 35 years old. Warsh has been a Wall Street banker and advisor, and would be one of the most extraordinarily wealthy Fed governors in history, in part due to his Wall Street career, and in part due to his wife's fortune as an heir to the Est?e Lauder family.

Warsh's Wall Street career includes a stint as a partner at hedge fund investor Stanley Druckenmiller's family office. During his time at the Fed during the financial crisis, he played a central role in arranging deals that saved Wall Street banks and the markets from crashing.

By the time the COVID-19 crisis came around, after leaving the Fed, he had become an outspoken critic of the role the Fed had come to play in the financial landscape.