Chair Powell says he won’t step aside if Trump asks 

There are a few possible outcomes now that Trump will be moving back to Washington in January

share


This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


This week’s FOMC meeting ended as expected Thursday, with central bankers opting to lower interest rates by 25 basis points. President-elect Donald Trump, however, may have been caught off guard by some of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments. 

Powell asserted yesterday that he had no intention of leaving his post before his term ends in 2026, even if Trump asks him to step aside. 

“No,” Powell said simply when asked during the post-FOMC press conference if he would resign at the new administration’s request. 

To be clear, Trump said in June that he would allow Powell — a Trump appointee — to serve out his term. The comments come after the former president threatened to remove Powell during his first term in the White House, an act Powell said Thursday is not legally sound. 

Removing a chair, Powell said, is “not permitted under law.” 

The comments got us thinking about a topic we’ve talked about before: Trump’s plans for the SEC. I was in Nashville when Trump proclaimed at the Bitcoin 2024 conference that he would “fire Gensler on day one” — a promise that riled up the crowd more than I think even Trump imagined. 

There are a few possible outcomes now that we know Trump will be moving back to Washington in January. First, it’s worth noting that agency chairs often resign on their own once the president that nominated them leaves office. 

Chair Mary Jo White, who served under the Obama Administration, announced she’d be leaving shortly after Trump was elected. Jay Clayton, White’s successor, did the same after Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020. Both departures gave the incoming president the power to select an interim chair before ultimately submitting a nomination for Senate approval. 

We haven’t heard any comments from Gensler yet. But even if he doesn’t step aside before Inauguration Day, legal scholars generally agree that Trump would be allowed to name a current commissioner as acting chair. 

The concept of “firing” an agency chair is a bit of a legal gray area, though. 

“Courts’ general view is that the president can only remove a commissioner, including the chairman, of the SEC ‘for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office,’” said Jon Ammons, a partner in Reed Smith’s onchain digital asset group.

Regardless, the current consensus seems to be that Commissioner Mark Uyeda would take over for Gensler — at least as acting chair before Trump nominates an outsider. Rumor has it that Robinhood chief legal officer Dan Gallagher, who has had his own unproductive dealings with the securities regulator, is on Trump’s short list. 

If I were Gensler, I’d give Powell a call. I bet he already has.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research

article-image

Judge Analisa Torres said the parties have not demonstrated that vacating her prior ruling is in the best interest of the public

article-image

Prediction markets have found a mainstream fit

article-image

Money for enemies isn’t fun, but crypto can be

article-image

Onchain SOL perps wiped $31 million, outpacing CEX volumes two days in a row

article-image

Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Senators Wednesday that the timeline on lowering interest rates is up in the air

article-image

Credit infrastructure DeFi protocol Grove makes allocation into a CLO segment “ripe for movement into DeFi”