President Trump is laying the groundwork to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as soon as he can.

With less than a year left in Powell’s term as Fed chair, Trump is eager to usher him toward the door and line up a replacement more aligned with the president’s agenda.

Trump said this week he's currently vetting “three or four” candidates to be Fed chair, and that he could announce his pick well before Powell’s term ends in May.

Here are five front-runners for Trump’s Fed nomination.

The perennial candidate: Kevin Warsh

Kevin Warsh has been in the running for a top Trump administration economic position since the president’s first administration. This may finally be his moment.

A former Morgan Stanley banker and George W. Bush economic advisor, Warsh became the youngest person to join the Fed board in 2006 at age 35. He served as the Fed’s point man with Wall Street during the 2007-08 financial crisis and remained at the central bank through 2011.

Warsh was among Trump’s finalists to replace former Fed Chair Janet Yellen in 2018 but lost out to Powell — a Republican Fed governor with bipartisan credibility and a strong working relationship with then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

After the 2024 election, Warsh was among several rumored candidates for Trump’s Treasury secretary nomination and has met with the president at Mar-a-Lago.

“Trump has been vocal about his desire for a Fed that embraces lower rates and his ideal Fed chair candidate would be more pliant yet someone that the markets can accept with a degree of credibility. Kevin Warsh … could fit the bill,” wrote analysts at Beacon Policy Advisors.

Fedwatchers have long considered Warsh the heir apparent to Powell given his close ties to Trump’s orbit and willingness to call out the current central bank regime. Warsh has been fiercely critical of the Fed under Powell’s leadership, accusing the bank of hiding behind its independence to avoid accountability.

“Independence is reflexively declared, all too often in my view, when the Fed is criticized," Warsh said in an April........

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