Elizabeth Warren rips Federal Reserve chair pick Kevin Walsh

Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a blistering letter to Federal Reserve chair nominee Kevin Warsh on Thursday, predicting he would serve as a “rubber stamp for President Trump’s Wall Street First Agenda,” and accusing him of having learned “nothing from your failures” during a prior stint at the central bank.

Warren, D-Mass, in the letter reported first by CNBC, told Warsh that his record as a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors from 2006 until 2011 — which included the 2008-09 financial crisis and Great Recession — “should disqualify you from a promotion.”

“But President Donald Trump has vowed that ‘anybody that disagrees with’ him ‘will never be the Fed Chairman,’ ” Warren noted.

“And you, apparently, have passed his test,” she added.

“As Fed Chair, you will be responsible for directing economy-altering policies that have serious
consequences for American workers and communities,” Warren wrote. “However, your track record leading up to, during, and after the 2008 financial crisis raises significant concerns about your ability to do so.”

The letter, which CNBC obtained before it was publicly released, asked Warsh pointed, detailed questions about 10 different subject areas to be answered for his confirmation hearing at the Senate Banking Committee, where Warren is the ranking Democrat.

But those queries were buried at the bottom of what reads as a scathing, eight-page indictment of his tenure at the Fed, and what she called his advocacy “against tougher safeguards intended to prevent big bank failures and taxpayer bailouts” after he left the central bank.

“I write to better understand what, if anything, you’ve learned from your failure to prioritize American families over Wall Street before, during, and after the 2008 financial crisis while serving as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,” Warren said in the letter’s first sentence.

“Rather than implementing policies to improve the lives of the American public, you ignored the obviously excessive risk-taking on Wall Street; worked tirelessly to bail out large financial institutions after their bets blew up the economy; and advocated for policies that would have further harmed the millions of Americans who lost their jobs, were thrown out their homes, and saw their life savings evaporate,” she continued.

Warsh did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC about the letter.

Warsh’s nomination is in limbo as Warren’s fellow Banking Committee member, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has said he would effectively block the nomination from being considered by the full Senate until a criminal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell is resolved.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has indicated she has no intention of dropping that probe.

Pirro’s office is seeking to reverse a ruling on March 11 by a federal judge in Washington, blocking subpoenas issued to the Fed as part of its investigation of Powell, which is purportedly focused on cost overruns of the pricey renovation of the Fed’s headquarters and testimony about that project to the Banking Committee.

District Court Judge James Boasberg, in his order quashing those subpoenas, wrote, “There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will.”

Trump has repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, pressured Powell and the entire Board of Governors to cut interest rates more quickly and deeply than they have since Trump reentered the White House in January 2025.

Powell earlier in March said he would remain as chair pro tem if Warsh is not confirmed by May, when Powell’s term as chair expires.

In her letter to Warsh on Thursday, Warren said that when he began his service on the Board of Governors, there were “warning signs of the coming crisis” in the subprime home-lending market.

“Yet rather than using the Fed’s powerful supervisory and regulatory authorities to address the severe consumer and financial stability risks posed by subprime mortgages, you defended and even implicitly promoted these products,” Warren wrote.

“Astonishingly, in December 2007, you agreed that “subprime mortgages have gotten a bad name
in this environment,” she wrote. “You also promoted derivatives and other forms of ‘financial innovation’ as vehicles to disperse risk and make the financial system safer.”

“Again, you were wrong.”

Warren said that during the resultant financial crisis, “you appear to have prioritized the interests of large financial institutions ahead of the American public.”

“Your eagerness to bail out Wall Street, including through taxpayer-assisted megamergers, was not surprising, given the seven years you spent as a Morgan Stanley mergers and acquisitions executive prior to joining the George W. Bush Administration,” Warren wrote.

“It has been well-documented that you played a central role helping to arrange numerous [multibillion-dollar] bailouts and even obtained an ethics waiver to deal directly with Morgan Stanley, which received the special regulatory approvals from the Fed on an expedited basis necessary to access additional emergency support.”

The senator said Warsh also advocated for higher interest rates at the time, “further imperiling an ailing economy” that was hemorrhaging jobs.

“Your monetary policy record shows a repeated failure to accurately assess the impact of inflation on the American economy,” Warren wrote.

“It appears you have learned nothing from your failures,” she wrote.

“Since leaving the Fed, you have advocated against tougher safeguards intended to prevent big bank failures and taxpayer bailouts.”

— CNBC’s Matt Peterson contributed to this article.