Trump announces two Federal Reserve nominations

President Trump on Monday announced two new nominees to the Federal Reserve board.

Richard Clarida, a Columbia University Republican economist and monetary policy specialist, will be nominated to serve as vice chairman to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

Clarida has taught at Columbia since 1988 and is a managing director at Pacific Investment Management Co. He is seen as a pragmatist rather than an idealist and is well regarded by both conservative and liberal economists, according to The Wall Street Journal.  

Clarida is a moderate Republican in line with Trump’s previous Fed nominees. He’d become the highest ranking academic on the Fed board and would serve as the deputy to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. His decades of teaching and research is seen as a compliment to Powell’s relative lack of academic experience. Powell is the first Fed chairman in more than three decades without a doctorate. 

{mosads}

The other nominee, Michelle Bowman, has been Kansas’s bank commissioner since the beginning of last year. Bowman was previously a vice president at Farmers & Drovers Bank, a Kansas bank that reported $181 million in assets in 2017. She would fill one of the Fed board’s seven-member seats reserved for community bankers.

Bowman has also served as counsel or adviser to several lawmakers and congressional committees, followed by stints with the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during the administration of former President George W. Bush.

The two nominees indicate that the president has chosen against nominating people who are critical of the Federal Reserve. During the 2016 presidential election, the president often criticized the Federal Reserve.

Clarida served the Treasury Department’s top economist during George W. Bush’s presidency. He also served in the Treasury Department during the George H.W. Bush administration. 

Clarida fits a similar mold to Trump’s two additions to the Fed—Powell and Vice Chairman of Supervision Randal Quarles—who both served as top Treasury aides under Republican presidents and have resumes boasting major investment firms. 

Trump has also nominated Marvin Goodfriend, a Carnegie Mellon professor and former Richmond Fed senior vice president, to the Fed board. The Senate Banking Committee approved his nomination along party lines in February, but key Senate conservatives could derail Goodfriend’s confirmation.

All Federal Reserve board nominations are subject to Senate confirmation.

Updated at 2:47 p.m.