Stephen Miran, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, following a television interview outside the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, June 17, 2025.
Aaron Schwartz | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Senate on Monday confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to join the Federal Reserve, Stephen Miran, just one day before the central bank meets to consider whether to cut interest rates.
Miran’s fast-tracked confirmation by a vote of 48-47 late Monday means he will attend the board’s highly-anticipated Federal Open Market Committee meeting in Washington D.C., which begins Tuesday.
The vote largely fell along party lines, with the exception of Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who joined Democrats in opposing Miran’s confirmation.
Miran has said that once he is confirmed, he plans to take an unpaid leave of absence from his job as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors.
But he has so far stopped short of agreeing to resign altogether from the political appointment.
That prospect has further inflamed concerns among Democrats and some economists that the Fed’s independence is under threat, if a White House appointee who works for the president simultaneously serves as an “independent” governor of the central bank.
Markets are expecting the central bank to announce a rate cut for the first time since December 2024. But questions remain over how deep any cut might be.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has so far resisted the president’s pressure campaign to lower borrowing costs. But he signaled last month that economic conditions — including uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariffs — may warrant rate cuts at the September meeting.
Miran is not likely to be a decisive vote on any rate cuts this week. At its last meeting in late July, members of the FOMC voted 9-2 to keep rates steady.
But he also could be a dissenting vote should the committee, as expected, approve just a quarter percentage point reduction, arguing instead for a larger half-point cut.
Trump has also pushed for a larger cut — most recently in a Truth Social post Monday, writing that Powell, “MUST CUT INTEREST RATES, NOW, AND BIGGER THAN HE HAD IN MIND. HOUSING WILL SOAR!!!”
Critics also warn that Miran’s mere presence on the board — while also serving as a top White House aide — undermines the central bank’s independence from the Trump administration.
“One day of serving as the President’s chief economist and a supposedly independent Governor at the Fed would be one day too many,” Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said before Miran made it through her committee on a party-line vote last week.
These new concerns fall on top of longstanding fears sparked by Trump’s bare knuckle campaign to get the central bank to slash borrowing costs by any means.
Trump picked Miran to fill the seat vacated by former Governor Adriana Kugler, who abruptly announced her resignation in August.
Miran will serve until Jan. 31, 2026, when Kugler’s term was set to expire.
“The term for which I’ve been nominated is four and a half months. If I am nominated and confirmed for a longer term than just a handful of months, I would absolutely resign” from the White House, Miran said at his confirmation hearing.
Miran’s confirmation vote comes as Trump is also attempting to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook from the central bank, citing allegations of mortgage fraud put forward by his administration.
Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, has denied the allegations and sued to block her removal.
A federal appeals court ruled Monday — as the Senate was busy voting to confirm Miran — that Trump cannot remove Cook before the FOMC meeting, clearing the way for her to attend the gathering.
