Hassett says new Fed chair should be ‘an independent person’ who respects mandates

Jan 22 (Reuters) – White House adviser Kevin Hassett, one of the candidates in the running to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, told CNBC in an interview on Thursday that the central bank’s new chair should be “an independent person who respects the mandates”.

Hassett said the Fed needed someone like long-serving former Chair Alan Greenspan, who “let the economy run hot without causing inflation, because he recognized why the economy was hot,” echoing U.S. President Donald Trump’s similar comments earlier this week.

Hassett told CNBC that the U.S. might see growth of more than 5% for two consecutive quarters.

“But inflation is not taking off. And so it’s obvious, because productivity is in the force right now, because of AI and the data centers, yeah, and so, so it looks very, very much like the 90s to me right now. And so I think that the Greenspan judgment would be appropriate now,” he added.

Trump on Wednesday indicated he was close to choosing a new Fed chair, saying that he liked the idea of keeping Hassett in his current post, while adding that BlackRock’s chief bond investment manager, Rick Rieder, had been “very impressive” in his interview.

Hassett also praised Rieder in the CNBC interview, saying: “I’ve been friends with Rick for a long time. He’s the best bond guy.”

(Reporting by Shubham Kalia and Devika Nair in Bengaluru. Editing by Alex Richardson and Mark Potter)