President Trump has nominated his top economic adviser, Stephen Miran, to serve as a governor at the Federal Reserve, an institution the president has repeatedly attacked for failing to acquiesce to his demands for lower borrowing costs.
The opportunity to reshape the top ranks of the central bank arose when Adriana Kugler, whose term as a governor was set to expire on Jan. 31, unexpectedly announced last week that she was stepping down early.
As a governor, Mr. Miran would have the ability to vote on interest rates as well as a range of other policy decisions. Those decisions have become more fraught in recent months, as officials have split over the right time to restart interest rate cuts.
Mr. Trump made it clear on Thursday that Mr. Miran, who has criticized the Fed and its chair, Jerome H. Powell, in the past, would serve in the position temporarily if confirmed by the Senate, although it is possible that he could stay on. The White House is planning to run a separate process to nominate someone to fill the seat starting in February.
“In the meantime, we will continue to search for a permanent replacement,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media.
That person could potentially be elevated to become the chair of the central bank next year, when Mr. Powell’s term expires. His term as a governor, however, does not end until 2028 if he chooses to remain at the Fed.
The president has had a highly contentious relationship with the central bank since returning to the White House. He has repeatedly attacked Mr. Powell personally, accusing him just last week on social media of being “TOO ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL.”
Mr. Trump has also gone after Mr. Powell for costly renovations at the central bank’s headquarters in Washington. Mr. Trump visited the construction site in the days before the Fed’s most recent policy meeting last month, during which the president and Mr. Powell publicly sparred over the cost of the $2.5 billion project.
The source of their tension stems from the Fed’s reluctance to cut interest rates this year, after it lowered borrowing costs by a percentage point last year. Mr. Trump has called for interest rates to be three percentage points lower, arguing that the Fed is not only preventing the economy from booming but also making interest payments on the federal debt expensive.
The Fed operates independently of the White House, a separation that is seen as crucial to ensure that interest rate decisions are based on what is most appropriate economically rather than what is politically advantageous.
Two governors appointed by Mr. Trump in his first term, Christopher J. Waller and Michelle W. Bowman, dissented on the most recent decision to hold interest rates steady at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent, arguing in favor of a quarter-point cut. It was the first time that two members of the Fed’s Board of Governors had dissented since 1993. Mr. Trump tapped Ms. Bowman this spring to be the vice chair for supervision, while Mr. Waller is also seen as a potential contender to replace Mr. Powell as chair.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, and Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor, are also under consideration for the Fed’s top job. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, was seen as a potential pick even as he leads the search, although Mr. Trump said this week that Mr. Bessent would stay in his current role.
Mr. Miran served at the Treasury Department during the first Trump administration, advising on economic policy under the Treasury secretary at the time, Steven Mnuchin, before joining Hudson Bay Capital Management, a hedge fund, as a senior strategist. Mr. Miran donated to Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, federal campaign records show.
Since returning to the administration, Mr. Miran has overseen work at the White House to produce research about the economic effects of the president’s policies. In that role, he has been unwavering in his support for Mr. Trump’s agenda, at times producing reports that economists have questioned.
In particular, Mr. Miran has echoed Mr. Trump in maintaining that high tariffs would not cause consumer prices to rise significantly. Under his leadership, the Council of Economic Advisers produced a report that argued that the cost of Mr. Trump’s expansive taxes on imports had fallen primarily on foreign suppliers, who could not afford to lose access to the U.S. market.
But Mr. Miran’s views have sometimes broken with most economists’ projections, and even some of the early data, after an inflation report showed that goods like clothing were becoming more expensive. At times, he and his White House colleagues have largely dismissed the data, arguing instead that the economy has boomed under Mr. Trump’s watch.
“Sure, eventually, a meteor is going to strike or whatever, but we’ve been waiting and it’s been many months now, and that evidence has just not emerged,” Mr. Miran said last month on CNBC.
Before joining the administration, Mr. Miran floated the idea of weakening the value of the U.S. dollar in a bid to make American imports more competitive, a proposal known as the Mar-a-Lago Accord. He also highlighted the costs of the dollar’s being the world’s reserve currency. After taking his position as the top White House economic adviser, Mr. Miran backed away from those ideas.
Last year, Mr. Miran wrote a 24-page proposal with Dan Katz, who now serves in the Treasury Department, about how to reform the Fed. They accused the central bank of “groupthink that has led to significant monetary-policy errors while allowing the Fed the flexibility to unwisely expand its remit into inherently political areas such as credit rationing and banking regulation.”
They also wrote that Fed governors should be prohibited from serving in the executive branch for four years following the end of their term to “further insulate board members from the day-to-day political process.”
Mr. Miran also directly criticized Mr. Powell for contributing to the inflation surge in the aftermath of the pandemic.
“Powell was wrong politically and economically when he urged Congress to ‘go big’ on fiscal stimulus in October of 2020” Mr. Miran wrote on social media in September. He added, “We know what happened next.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Miran acknowledged on CNBC that recent economic indicators — including downbeat reports on jobs and manufacturing — had not been “up to snuff.” But, he maintained, “some significant headwinds to the economy have just turned into enormous tailwinds,” pointing to the passage of Mr. Trump’s tax and policy bill and the president’s new tariffs as a source of the coming boom.
The next day, just hours before his nomination was announced, Mr. Miran took to Fox Business Network to laud Mr. Trump and predict that the president’s policies on tax and trade would result in a “material uptick in economic growth.”