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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sparred with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday during a Senate Banking Committee hearing over a joke President Donald Trump made about Federal Reserve nominee Kevin Warsh.
Warren, the panel’s ranking member, asked Bessent about comments Trump made over the weekend, when he joked — or appeared to joke — about suing Warsh if he failed to lower the national interest rate. The question triggered a shouting match between the two.
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Warren: This one should be an easy one. Mr. Secretary, can you commit right here and now that Trump’s Fed nominee, Kevin Warsh, will not be sued, will not be investigated by the Department of Justice, if he doesn’t cut interest rates exactly the way Donald Trump wants?
Bessent: That’s up to the president. Can you commit that you will—
Warren: I’m sorry? You can’t say that he won’t be sued if he doesn’t drop interest rates?
Bessent: Can you commit that you will not hold up—
Warren: And he won’t be criminally investigated?
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts and ranking member of Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, presses Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on affordability during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Kent Nishimura / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Bessent: The president also made a joke about you — one I won’t repeat.
Warren: That was supposed to be a softball. That was the easy one. If this was a joke, why not just say so?
Bessent: It was a joke, and he made a joke about you, too, Senator Warren. It got a lot of laughs, it got a lot of laughs. I don’t know if you want to respond to that.
Warren: I do want to respond, I think the American people are laughing, they are the ones that are struggling.
Bessent: What I can tell you is that Mr. Warsh is highly qualified. And why don’t you tell the nation what you told me — that you held up Chair Powell’s nomination.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed back on Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s questioning during a heated exchange on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Last week, Trump nominated Warsh to lead the world’s most powerful central bank. If confirmed by the Senate, Warsh would assume one of the most powerful positions in U.S. economic policymaking, with direct influence over interest rate decisions and the central bank’s battle against inflation.
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Kevin Warsh, former governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, was nominated by Trump to helm the world’s most powerful central bank. ( Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Warsh’s potential ascension to the top spot at the Fed comes as Trump has often made current Fed chair Jerome Powell a lightning rod for economic criticism, with tensions between the two deteriorating over interest rate decisions and broader monetary policy.
Powell is currently under criminal investigation over the accuracy of his congressional testimony regarding the Federal Reserve’s ongoing renovation.
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