Trump’s transition team tussles over choice for top economic post

It’s the most important pick for President-elect Donald Trump’s economic agenda. Now it appears Trump is having second thoughts about his treasury secretary options.

The Treasury secretary acts as the president’s closest economic advisor and is fifth in the presidential line of succession. The person who holds this cabinet post will play a key role in helping Trump carry out his agendas on tax cuts and tariffs. 

The president-elect’s search for a Treasury secretary is expanding this week after reports of infighting in Trump’s camp over the selection. 

Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent have been floated as the final two candidates but they are now joined by two more names, Marc Rowan and Kevin Warsh.

Howard Lutnick

Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick is Trump’s transition co-chair and has had a big say in how Trump’s cabinet has shaped up so far. The two have known each other for decades and Lutnick fundraised for Trump during a critical part of the campaign. He’s also a big proponent of Trump’s tariff policies.

“Tariffs are an amazing tool by the president to use. They’re an amazing tool, but he understands, don’t tariff stuff we don’t make,” Lutnick said on CNBC. “If we don’t make it and you want to buy it, I don’t want to put the price up there. It’s pointless. But use tariffs to build in America. If we want to make it in America, tariff it, or if we’re competing with it, tariff it. But you gotta remember, we need to protect the American worker. Finally, someone’s going to protect the American worker.”

But will he get his desired post of Treasury secretary? The New York Times reports Lutnick has gotten on Trump’s nerves lately, with Trump privately expressing frustration that “Lutnick has been hanging around him too much and that he has been manipulating the transition process for his own ends.”

Would be interesting to hear more people weigh in on this for @realDonaldTrump to consider feedback.

My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will actually enact change.

Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change… https://t.co/igGLZOJ8wz

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 16, 2024

Lutnick does have the public backing of Elon Musk as a changemaker. Musk said another frontrunner, Scott Bessent, would be “business-as-usual,” which is “driving America bankrupt.”

Scott Bessent

“I’ve been in the investment business 35 years, and Donald Trump is the most sophisticated leader on economics that I’ve met,” Bessent told Fox Business.

Bessent is the founder and CEO of the hedge fund Key Square Group, an ex-Soros executive and a key economic adviser to Trump during the 2024 campaign.

Trump has said he is “a nice-looking guy” who is “one of the most brilliant men on Wall Street.”

Bessent is seen as a safe bet for markets. Investment manager Dan Loeb appeared to back Bessent as the better choice in an X post, indicating Lutnick would shake markets.

But the jockeying for Treasury secretary between these two was described in the Times “as a knife fight, with Mr. Lutnick as the primary aggressor.” Now, two more choices have entered the fray.

Marc Rowan

“I think this administration has a remarkable chance to really pivot the country, to take advantage of all the inherent positives that we have,” Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan told Yahoo Finance.

Rowan is a new face in the race but does he want the job? According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump aides have reached out to the Wall Street billionaire to gauge his interest. The Times said Trump wants someone “big” for the role and has made clear he’s impressed with Rowan.

“Our financial situation is fixable,” Rowan said. “It is fixable in a way that is positive for the base that [the] President-elect has said that he wants to help. But it is not fixable by small amounts of tinkering. It is about wholesale change, and we as humans, we are sometimes scared of wholesale change.”

If the offer of Treasury secretary doesn’t entice Rowan to step into the public sector, there’s another candidate with whom Trump has more history. 

Kevin Warsh

Trump once considered former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh as a potential Fed chair before choosing Jerome Powell, a choice Trump has long lamented.

“When times were tough, what did the Federal Reserve say? They went to Congress and said, ‘Please spend more.’ So they acted asymmetrically,” Warsh said of the Fed’s pandemic-recovery moves. “That’s the big mistake you can make. Well if you’re going to get into the fiscal business when you’re running these kinds of deficits at a time of relative peace and relative prosperity, you have to open your mouth the other way too. You cannot have fiscally responsible economic policy and irresponsible monetary policy. When one policy is irresponsible, so is the other, and that’s the fix we’re in, and we need to get out of it.”

Warsh will likely be interviewed for the Treasury post but has also been raised as someone who could potentially replace Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve when Powell’s seat is up in 2026. 

According to reports, Trump is expected to invite potential Treasury picks to interview at Mar-a-Lago this week. But given Trump’s uncertainty over the role, there could be more names floated before the week is done.