Scott Bessent confirms moves to replace Jerome Powell are under way: ‘There’s a formal process that’s already starting’
The search for the next leader of the world’s most influential central bank is officially under way, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg on Tuesday. “There’s a formal process that’s already starting,” he said when asked about efforts to find Jerome Powell’s replacement as Federal Reserve chair. Powell’s term expires in 2026. In the first public acknowledgement of the much-rumored news about a transition at the Fed, Bessent added, “There are a lot of good candidates inside and outside the Federal Reserve.”
Speaking on “Bloomberg Surveillance,” Bessent also suggested that Powell should consider stepping down from the Fed entirely once his chairmanship ends, arguing that such a move would avoid confusion and maintain market stability. “Traditionally, the Fed chair also steps down as a governor,” Bessent said. “There’s been a lot of talk of a shadow Fed chair causing confusion in advance of his or her nomination. And I can tell you, I think it’d be very confusing for the market for a former Fed chair to stay on also.”
Hours later, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon indirectly rebutted these comments, telling reporters after an earnings conference call, “I think the independence of the Fed is absolutely critical.” In doing so, as The Wall Street Journal reported, Dimon became the first head of a major U.S. financial institution to weigh in on the Trump administration’s pressure on Powell. “Playing around with the Fed can have adverse consequences,” he added, “the absolute opposite of what you might be hoping for.” Dimon has been outspoken as usual recently, making headlines at an event in Ireland last week with comments on matters including Europe’s lack of competitiveness, Trump backing off on some tariffs, and his disagreements with the Democratic Party.
The pressure on Powell
Powell could technically remain on the Fed’s Board of Governors until January 2028. But Bessent’s comments highlight the administration’s desire for a clean break, with a new chair taking the reins and Powell stepping aside entirely. According to Bessent, the White House aims to announce a nominee for the next Fed chair as early as October or November.
The Trump administration — mainly in the form of communications from Trump himself — has made no secret of its desire for a central bank leader more aligned with its preference for lower interest rates and a more accommodative stance. Trump has repeatedly and publicly demanded that Powell “resign immediately,” calling him “very bad for the country” and blaming him for not cutting interest rates as aggressively as Trump desires. He’s resorted to personal insults at times while consistently criticizing Powell’s refusal to lower rates. “Every point [of interest] costs us $360 billion,” arguing that rates should be below 1%.
Through Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, the administration has accused Powell of “gross mismanagement” and “ostentatious” spending on a $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s headquarters. Letters from the White House have questioned the legality and necessity of the project, suggesting it could be grounds for removal. Other senior administration officials have weighed in, such as Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who stated that Powell’s resignation would be “the right decision for America.”
Trump and his advisers have openly discussed the possibility of firing Powell “for cause,” with some officials suggesting that the headquarters renovation could provide legal justification. One of these is Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, a name who has been floated as a potential Powell successor. There has also been talk of Trump naming a “shadow chair” before Powell’s term ends, a move that could undermine Powell’s authority and signal a shift in Fed governance. Hassett, when asked in an ABC News interview Sunday whether the president has the authority to fire the Fed chair, said, “That’s a thing that’s being looked into. But certainly, if there’s cause, he does.”
However, Bessent stressed to Bloomberg on Tuesday that Trump has said “numerous times he is not going to fire Jay Powell.” In response to the mounting pressure, Powell has requested an inspector general review of the renovation project and has reiterated his intention to serve out his term.
Who’s in the running?
While Bessent himself has been floated as a possible candidate, he downplayed such speculation, saying to Bloomberg that he’s “part of the decision-making process,” and emphasizing that there are “a lot of good, strong candidates” both inside and outside the Fed.
Besides Hassett, other names reported as potential Fed chairs include Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor and Wall Street veteran known for his crisis management experience and close ties to the Trump administration; Michelle Bowman, the current Fed vice chair; and Christopher Waller, a sitting Fed governor, respected for his academic credentials and policy expertise.
Bessent’s remarks sent ripples through financial markets on Tuesday. Yields on two-year U.S. Treasury notes climbed to session highs following the interview, reflecting investor uncertainty about the future direction of Fed policy and the potential for a more dovish successor. And, although Bessent said he had not looked at consumer inflation data due Tuesday morning, it came out as expected, showing a gradual rise in the consumer price index—exactly the kind of data that Powell has cited as a reason for not cutting rates.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
After two decades of climbing the corporate ladder at companies ranging from ABC, ESPN, and Charter Communications (commonly known as Spectrum), Timm Chiusano quit it all to become a content creator.
He wasn’t just walking away from high titles, but a high salary, too. In his peak years, Chiusano made $600,000 to $800,000 annually. But in June of 2024, after giving a 12-week notice, he “responsibility fired himself” from his corporate job as VP of production and creative services at Charter.
He did it all to help others navigate the challenges of a workplace, and appreciate the most mundane parts of life on TikTok.
most people are posting their 2024 recaps; these are a few of my favorite moments from the year that was, but i need to start reintroducing myself too i dont have a college degree, no one in my life knew that until i was 35 when i eventually got my foot in the door in my early 20’s after a few years of substitute teaching and part time jobs, i thought for sure i had found the career path of my dreams in live sports production i didn’t think i had a chance of surviving that first college football season but i busted my ass, stuck around and got promoted 5 times in 5 years then i met a girl in Las Vegas, got married in 7 months, and freaked out about my career that had me travelling 36 weeks a year i had to find a more stable “desk job”, i was scared shitless that i was pigeonholed and the travel would eventually destroy my marriage i crafted a narative for espn arguing they needed me on their marketing team because of my unique perspective coming from the production side i got rejected, but kept trying and a year i got that job the 7 years with espn were incredible, but also exhausting and raised all kinds of questions about corporate america, toxic situations, and capitalism in general why was i borderline heart attack stressed so often when i could see that my ideas were literally generating 2,000 times the money that i was getting paid? in 2012 i had a kid and in 2013 i got the biggest job of my career to reinvent how to produce 20,000 commercials a year for small business it took 12 rounds of interviews, a drug test i somehow passed, and a background check that finally made me tell my wife of 8 years that i didnt have a college degree they brought me in the thursday before my first day and told me what i told grace in that clip the next decade was an insane blur; i saw everything one would ever see in their career from the perspective of an executive at a fortune 100 i started making tiktoks, kinda blacked out at some point in 2019 and responsibly fired myself in 2024 to see what i might be capable of on my own with all the skills i picked up along my career journey now the mission is pay what i know forward, and see if i can become the mr rogers of corporate america cc: @grace beverley @Ryan Holiday @Subway Oracle
What started as short-video vlogs on just about anything in 2020 (reviews on protein bars, sushi, and sneakers) later transitioned to videos on growing up, and dealing with life’s challenges, like coming to terms when you have a toxic boss. Today, his platform on TikTok has over 1 million followers.
With the help of going viral from his “loop” format where videos end and seamlessly circle back to the beginning, he began making more videos as a side-hustle on top of his day-to-day tasks in the office.
“How can I get people to be smarter and more comfortable about their careers in ways that are gonna help on a day-to-day basis?” Chiusano told Fortune.
Today, he could go by many titles: former vice president at a Fortune 100 company, motivational speaker, dad, content creator, or as he labels himself, the Mister Rogers of Corporate America.
Just as the late public television icon helped kids navigate the complexities of childhood, Chiusano wants to help young adults think about how to approach their careers and their potential to make an impact.
“Mister Rogers is the greatest of all time in his space. I will never get to that level of impact. But it’s an easy way to describe what I’m trying to do, and it consistently gives me a goal to strive for,” he said. “There are some parallels here with the quirkiness.”
Firing himself after 25 years in the corporate world
Even with years in corporate, Chiusano doesn’t resemble the look of a typical buttoned-up executive. Today, he has more of a relaxed Brooklyn dad attire, with a sleeve of tattoos and a confidence to blend in with any trendy middle aged man in Soho. During our interview, he showed off one of the first tattoos he got: two businessmen shaking hands, a reference to Radiohead’s OK Computer album.
“This is a dope ass Monday in your 40s,” began one of his videos.
It consisted of Chiusano doing everyday things such as eating leftovers, going to the gym, training for the NYC marathon, taking out the trash, dropping his daughter off at school, a rehearsal for a Ted Talk, eating lunch with his wife, and brand deal meetings. Though the content sounds pretty normal, that’s the point.
“The reason why I fired myself in the first place was to be here,” he says in the video while picking his daughter up from school.
Today, Chiusano spends his days making content on navigating workplace culture, public speaking, brand deals, brand partnerships, executive coaching, writing a book, and the most important job: being a dad to his 13-year-old daughter Evelyn.
“I’m basically flat [in salary] to where I was, and this is everything I could ever want in the world,” he said. “The ability to send my kid to the school she’s been going to, eat sushi takeout almost as much as I’d like, and do nice things for my wife.”
In fact, when sitting inside one of his favorite New York City spots, Lure Fishbar, he keeps getting stopped by regulars who know him by name. He points out that one of his favorite interviews he filmed here was with legendary filmmaker Ken Burns.
Advice to Gen Z
In a time where Gen Z has been steering to more unconventional paths, like content creation or skill trades rather than just a 9-to-5 office job, Chiusano opens up a lens to what life looks like when deciding to be present rather than always looking for what’s next—a mistake he said he made in his 20s.
Instead, he wants to teach the younger generation to build skills for as long as you can, but “if you are unhappy, that’s a very different conversation.”
“I think some people will make themselves more unhappy because they feel like that’s what’s expected of a situation,” he said.
“I would love to be able to empower your generation more, to be like somebody’s gonna have to be the head of HR at that super random company to put cool standards and practices in place for better work-life balance for the employees.”
For Mark Zuckerberg, the most significant creation from his two years at Harvard University wasn’t the precursor to a global social network, but a prank website that nearly got him expelled.
The Meta CEO said in a 2017 commencement address at his alma mater that the controversial site, Facemash, was “the most important thing I built in my time here” for one simple reason: it led him to his wife, Priscilla Chan.
“Without Facemash I wouldn’t have met Priscilla, and she’s the most important person in my life,” Zuckerberg said during the speech.
In 2003, Zuckerberg, then a sophomore, created Facemash by hacking into Harvard’s online student directories and using the photos to create a site where users could rank students’ attractiveness. The site went viral, but it was quickly shut down by the university. Zuckerberg was called before Harvard’s Administrative Board, facing accusations of breaching security, violating copyrights, and infringing on individual privacy.
“Everyone thought I was going to get kicked out,” Zuckerberg recalled in his speech. “My parents came to help me pack. My friends threw me a going-away party.”
It was at this party, thrown by friends who believed his expulsion was imminent, where he met Chan, another Harvard undergraduate. “We met in line for the bathroom in the Pfoho Belltower, and in what must be one of the all time romantic lines, I said: ‘I’m going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly,’” Zuckerberg said.
Chan, who described her now-husband to The New Yorker as “this nerdy guy who was just a little bit out there,” went on the date with him. Zuckerberg did not get expelled from Harvard after all, but he did famously drop out the following year to focus on building Facebook.
While the 2010 film The Social Network portrayed Facemash as a critical stepping stone to the creation of Facebook, Zuckerberg himself has downplayed its technical or conceptual importance.
“And, you know, that movie made it seem like Facemash was so important to creating Facebook. It wasn’t,” he said during his commencement speech. But he did confirm that the series of events it set in motion—the administrative hearing, the “going-away” party, the line for the bathroom—ultimately connected him with the mother of his three children.
Chan, for her part, went on to graduate from Harvard in 2007, taught science, and then attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, becoming a pediatrician.
She and Zuckerberg got married in 2012, and in 2015, they co-founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization focused on leveraging technology to address major world challenges in health, education, and science. Chan serves as co-CEO of the initiative, which has pledged to give away 99% of the couple’s shares in Meta Platforms to fund its work.
You can watch the entirety of Zuckerberg’s Harvard commencement speech below:
For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is a nonpartisan watchdog that regularly estimates how much the U.S. Congress is adding to the $38 trillion national debt.
With enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies due to expire within days, some Senate Democrats are scrambling to protect millions of Americans from getting the unpleasant holiday gift of spiking health insurance premiums. The CRFB says there’s just one problem with the plan: It’s not funded.
“With the national debt as large as the economy and interest payments costing $1 trillion annually, it is absurd to suggest adding hundreds of billions more to the debt,” CRFB President Maya MacGuineas wrote in a statement on Friday afternoon.
The proposal, backed by members of the Senate Democratic caucus, would fully extend the enhanced ACA subsidies for three years, from 2026 through 2028, with no additional income limits on who can qualify. Those subsidies, originally boosted during the pandemic and later renewed, were designed to lower premiums and prevent coverage losses for middle‑ and lower‑income households purchasing insurance on the ACA exchanges.
CRFB estimated that even this three‑year extension alone would add roughly $300 billion to federal deficits over the next decade, largely because the federal government would continue to shoulder a larger share of premium costs while enrollment and subsidy amounts remain elevated. If Congress ultimately moves to make the enhanced subsidies permanent—as many advocates have urged—the total cost could swell to nearly $550 billion in additional borrowing over the next decade.
Reversing recent guardrails
MacGuineas called the Senate bill “far worse than even a debt-financed extension” as it would roll back several “program integrity” measures that were enacted as part of a 2025 reconciliation law and were intended to tighten oversight of ACA subsidies. On top of that, it would be funded by borrowing even more. “This is a bad idea made worse,” MacGuineas added.
The watchdog group’s central critique is that the new Senate plan does not attempt to offset its costs through spending cuts or new revenue and, in their view, goes beyond a simple extension by expanding the underlying subsidy structure.
The legislation would permanently repeal restrictions that eliminated subsidies for certain groups enrolling during special enrollment periods and would scrap rules requiring full repayment of excess advance subsidies and stricter verification of eligibility and tax reconciliation. The bill would also nullify portions of a 2025 federal regulation that loosened limits on the actuarial value of exchange plans and altered how subsidies are calculated, effectively reshaping how generous plans can be and how federal support is determined. CRFB warned these reversals would increase costs further while weakening safeguards designed to reduce misuse and error in the subsidy system.
MacGuineas said that any subsidy extension should be paired with broader reforms to curb health spending and reduce overall borrowing. In her view, lawmakers are missing a chance to redesign ACA support in a way that lowers premiums while also improving the long‑term budget outlook.
The debate over ACA subsidies recently contributed to a government funding standoff, and CRFB argued that the new Senate bill reflects a political compromise that prioritizes short‑term relief over long‑term fiscal responsibility.
“After a pointless government shutdown over this issue, it is beyond disappointing that this is the preferred solution to such an important issue,” MacGuineas wrote.
The off-year elections cast the government shutdown and cost-of-living arguments in a different light. Democrats made stunning gains and almost flipped a deep-red district in Tennessee as politicians from the far left and center coalesced around “affordability.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is reportedly smelling blood in the water and doubling down on the theme heading into the pivotal midterm elections of 2026. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Pennsylvania soon to discuss pocketbook anxieties. But he is repeating predecessor Joe Biden’s habit of dismissing inflation, despite widespread evidence to the contrary.
“We fixed inflation, and we fixed almost everything,” Trump said in a Tuesday cabinet meeting, in which he also dismissed affordability as a “hoax” pushed by Democrats.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now face a politically fraught choice: allow premiums to jump sharply—including in swing states like Pennsylvania where ACA enrollees face double‑digit increases—or pass an expensive subsidy extension that would, as CRFB calculates, explode the deficit without addressing underlying health care costs.
Politics8 years ago