Ciarán Hancock

Joining me on the line to answer that question is Keith Duggan, the Irish Times Washington correspondent.

I began by asking Keith to tell me a little bit about Warsh's background.

Yeah, now Trump's very critical of Powell.

He called him a moron previously.

And questions about, I suppose, the independence of Warsh, given that Donald Trump seems to be quite warm towards him.

Economist and influential New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, he described Warsh as Donald Trump's sock puppet.

Is that fair?

Yeah.

He was confirmed by 54 votes to 45, which sounds OK, you know, margin of nine.

But it was actually the narrowest margin for Senate approval of a Fed chair since that process was implemented 50 years ago.

Yeah.

Now, Donald Trump has suggested that Warsh will conform to his agenda and lower interest rates, which he argues will be necessary to boost the economy.

What has Warsh said about what he's going to do or what path he might take as Fed chief?

Yeah.

Now, Trump did appoint Jerome Powell, didn't he, during his first term as US president.

So presumably he was pretty warm towards Powell at that point.

But he cooled him, certainly in the second time around.

What are the chances that his relationship with Warsh might go the same way?

What's the mood like over there at the moment, Keith, among people?

You know, we talk a lot here about cost of living pressures and it gets a lot of airtime, etc.