U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would name Stephen Miran, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, to the Federal Reserve Board.
Miran would succeed Adriana Kugler, who said she would leave the board before her term expires on Jan. 31. If confirmed by the Senate, Miran would serve out the rest of her term.
A Harvard University-educated economist, Miran served in the U.S. Treasury Department during Trump’s first term. He is one of several Jewish Americans serving in the current administration.
“He has been with me from the beginning of my second term, and his expertise in the world of economics is unparalleled,” Trump stated. “He will do an outstanding job.”
Miran is expected to support Trump’s efforts to get the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. Thus far, the governors have balked at such a move, fearing a return to inflation if companies raise prices and pass along the costs of the president’s new tariffs to consumers.
“It’s really inconvenient for some that President Trump, who’s busy negotiating trade deals, enacting tax law and stopping wars, has such a great track record on interest rates, in both the dovish and hawkish directions,” Miran stated earlier this month. “But the track record is there.”
In 2022, he stated that he is an Ashkenazi Jew. He has also referred to obscure Torah concepts and used an Orthodox shorthand to avoid writing the Divine name, even in English, and cited a passage from legal writings of Maimonides about the Messiah.
“There’s a big difference between a lapsed Jew, who is just nonobservant, and a heretical Jew who preaches and proselytizes to undermine key concepts of Judaism,” he wrote. “The latter is dangerous to the entire Jewish people, the former only to himself.”
