00:00The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved Kevin Walsh as chair of the Federal Reserve,
00:04putting the 56-year-old lawyer and financier at the helm as the U.S. central bank grapples
00:09with intensifying inflation that may make it hard to push through the interest rate cuts
00:14that President Donald Trump has demanded.
00:18The vote was 54-45 in the most partisan ever U.S. Senate confirmation of Fed chair.
00:23A single Democrat, John Fetterman on Pennsylvania, voted with Republican majority.
00:30His swearing-in to the four-year Fed chair term and a concurrent 14-year term as a Fed governor
00:36approved by the Senate on Tuesday, awaits final White House signatures on paperwork sent by the Senate.
00:43The White House did not respond to questions about when Trump would complete the final paperwork
00:49or the timing of his swearing-in.
00:52Walsh will take the leadership baton from Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends on Friday,
00:58but who will remain a Fed governor.
01:01Expected to be in place to chair the Fed's next meeting, June 16-17,
01:06Walsh joins a central bank whose policymakers are engaged in a vigorous debate on the direction of interest rates.
01:15Several central bankers have argued that the Fed should consider rate highs,
01:19concerned that inflation is broadening even beyond the impact of the Trump administration's tariffs
01:25and the spike in oil prices from the Iran war.
01:29An index of producer prices, a key component of overall inflation,
01:35jumped 6% in April from a year earlier, the Labor Department reported on Wednesday.
01:40That's the fastest pace since December 2022 when the Fed was battling a 40-year record surge in prices
01:49with sharp rate highs.
01:52Analysts expect the personal consumption expenditures prices index to have risen 3.8% last month,
01:59moving further from the Fed's target of 2%.
02:04Analyze sure in June 25%,
02:06verses 49-18 to 7-year record,
02:06The sixth policy issueFund 4.8% last monthumbling
02:07is about 70% less trials in the state nor in the bay.
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