Trump Seeks Perfect Treasury Candidate as Search Drags On
1 / 2
Trump Seeks Perfect Treasury Candidate as Search Drags On
Nancy Cook, Saleha Mohsin and Joshua Green
6 min read
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump’s search for a Treasury secretary remains in flux, with the president-elect telling allies and advisers in recent days that he’s yet to be completely sold on the candidates he’s interviewed so far.
Hedge fund executive Scott Bessent, Apollo Global Management Inc. executive Marc Rowan and former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh remain among the leading contenders for the post. Each met Wednesday with Trump, with Rowan flying from Hong Kong, but none of the conversations prompted him to finalize and announce his decision. As of Thursday morning, Trump’s advisers said he was still ruminating over his options.
Those close to the process underscored that a choice could be announced at any minute. But already, the extended deliberation highlights its importance to Trump’s economic agenda, and his exacting — yet at times contradictory — requirements for the role.
Allies believe Trump wants a candidate favored both by Wall Street, helping to buoy markets, but who also retains credibility with his electoral base, eager for him to actually implement sweeping new tariffs and embrace cryptocurrency. There’s also familiar Trump requirements for a candidate — being loyal, telegenic and well-off.
Listen and follow The Big Take DC on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts
The president-elect has also indicated that conventional government credentials may be a detriment and that he prefers wealthy and innovative individuals who don’t need the job. As he deliberated, none of the remaining roster of candidates were seen as perfect, according to people familiar with the discussions, leaving a major hole in his cabinet before a second term begins.
Senator Bill Hagerty, the Tennessee Republican who served as the US ambassador to Japan during Trump’s first-term, was seen as a dark horse candidate, spending time in Palm Beach earlier this week and traveling to Texas on Trump’s plane to watch Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch its Starship rocket.
Yet their interactions on Tuesday did not impress Trump enough to end the competition that day and name Hagerty to the highest-ranking economic job in the administration.
Trump spent late Wednesday afternoon interviewing both Warsh and Rowan at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida with a tiny circle of advisers in the room, according to people familiar with the matter. He also met again with Bessent, who appeared to have momentum for the post last week before Trump widened the search.
Bessent did not reply to a request for comment.
The Trump transition team declined to give a timeline for naming a nominee.
“President-elect Trump is making decisions on who will serve in his second administration. Those decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made,” transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Thursday.
Outsider Pick
Rowan, of the current Treasury contenders, is among the least connected to Trump. The Apollo executive did not contribute directly to the president-elect’s 2024 White House bid, though he did support a pro-Trump super political action committee, according to the latest Federal Election Commission records. He instead invested millions into congressional Republicans. In 2020, he donated to Trump, but in 2016 Rowan contributed to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
“I don’t know how you pick a private equity guy, given all the damage private equity has done to workers in this country, how someone at Apollo is even on the shortlist,” Steve Bannon, a close Trump ally, said on his War Room podcast Thursday.
“Rowan is a very smart guy — some people may even say he’s brilliant, right?,” Bannon said. “But I don’t think he understands MAGA.”
The prolonged process, relative to Trump’s other top picks so far, opens up the possibility that the president-elect, known to be impulsive in spurts, could just land on a name that has so far not been floated publicly.
That’s what happened with his selection for attorney general. Trump was not enthralled with the candidates he personally interviewed, so then-Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida made a persuasive case for the job on a flight from Palm Beach to Washington and landed it, much to the surprise of his colleagues on Capitol Hill and even some of Trump’s top aides.
Gaetz — the subject of a long-running inquiry over allegations that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl in exchange for money, took illicit drugs, and accepted improper gifts — could face a steep climb to confirmation even with a Republican-controlled Senate. He has denied wrongdoing.
But that Trump would even consider him for his cabinet underscores the extent to which he emphasizes disruption in naming the leaders of his incoming administration, those familiar with the process say.
That’s led to selections that have fanned consternation across Washington before what could be tough confirmation battles for Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, and Fox News host Pete Hegseth, whom the president-elect chose as secretary of Defense.
Trump has relished the response to his choices of celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, former Republican congressman and reality television star Sean Duffy to lead the Department of Transportation and former Democratic congresswoman-turned-Fox News pundit Tulsi Gabbard as the director of National Intelligence.
Public Battle
Trump has also frowned at public lobbying for the role. Cantor Fitzgerald Chief Executive Officer Howard Lutnick, who is running Trump’s transition and who sought the Treasury job, was instead named to lead the Commerce Department after Trump soured on his effort to secure public backing from allies for the role, people familiar with the matter have said.
Some Trump allies and advisers have tried to make the case that Trump should select a Treasury secretary soon to send a signal to Wall Street that all will be well and calm. But others on his team feel he has a mandate to operate in an unconventional style that suits him.
David Wessel, the director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution, said “people on Wall Street, in the business community and in governments around the world are hoping that the Treasury secretary will be a conventional Republican pick.”
“If Trump chooses somebody really outside the box, that’s going to frighten people,” he added. “When you are the world’s largest debtor, you want to be careful about who you pick to be the chief bond salesman for the US government.”
Trump may also be weighing whether contenders for the Treasury post could be interested in other economic positions in his administration. The president-elect has still not announced his choices for US Trade Representative, Labor secretary, Small Business administrator, or the head of his Council of Economic Advisers.
--With assistance from Annmarie Hordern and Bill Allison.
(Updates with additional details on Rowan donations)
