Fed Chair Warsh delivers House testimony: Live coverage

Published July 14, 2026 10:06 AM

Updated July 14, 2026 11:08 AM

3 Min Read

Warsh Says Fed Has No Tolerance For Elevated Inflation — Kevin Warsh, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, July 14, 2026. Warsh said policymakers at the central bank have no tolerance for high inflation, reiterating a vow to tame price growth that has been elevated for five years. Photographer: Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg

Key insight: Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will sit for his first of two days of congressional testimony on Tuesday. Inflation, artificial intelligence and the chairman's task forces are all topics likely to arise during the hearing.
Expert quote: "Forward guidance isn't the business we should be in." — Fed Chair Kevin Warsh
Forward Look: This is the first time Warsh will go before Congress as head of the Federal Reserve. The event will test the limits of his commitment to sharing minimal forward guidance.

Kevin Warsh's commitment to limited communications will be put to the test this week as the Federal Reserve chair makes his first trip to Capitol Hill since being sworn into office.

Warsh kicks off two days of congressional testimony Tuesday morning during a hearing with the House Committee on Financial Services. He will discuss the Fed's just-released semiannual monetary policy report and face questions from committee members for roughly three hours.

The hearing comes on the heels of latest consumer price index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed prices rose 3.5% in June, a slower pace than the 4.2% rate tracked in May but still well above the Fed's 2% inflation goal. Overall, inflation has been above the Fed's target for more than five years

The trajectory of inflation has some Fed officials preparing to raise the target range for the federal funds in the near future. In a Monday morning speech, Fed Gov. Christopher Waller said he was loath to err on the side of inaction as the central bank did coming out of the pandemic.

"I am cognizant of the mistake we made in 2021 by not responding sooner to the high inflation we observed, and I am determined to avoid repeating it," Waller said.

Since taking office, Warsh has been resolute in his commitment to bringing inflation back to 2%, but he has said little about how he sees that disinflation coming about. A cornerstone of his chairmanship has been to avoid making any statements that could be deemed "forward guidance" about the path of monetary policy.

"Forward guidance isn't the business we should be in," Warsh said during his first post-Federal Open Market Committee meeting last month.

Warsh's strategic silence will be put to the test this week, as legislators stand ready to extract whatever insights and commitments they can from the Fed chairman while he is under oath.

One of the biggest questions about the inflation outlook is how artificial intelligence is reshaping the economy. Before becoming chair, Warsh subscribed to the argument that AI proliferation will boost productivity and thus increase aggregate supply in the economy, which — all else equal — would decrease prices. Some economists, meanwhile, point to the rapid investment in the technology and the underwriting of expected productivity gains into current asset prices as near-term drivers of inflation.

On this and other topics, Warsh has declined to opine on its potential impact on monetary policy. Instead, he has pointed toward the five task forces he is assembling to evaluate various parts of the Fed's policy framework, including inflation and productivity.

"There's a race between supply and demand. Milton Friedman says that the only thing we know about economics is that there's a supply line, a demand line," Warsh said during his press conference. "They ultimately cross when they cross, and what are the implications for policy? The good news for you is we have a task force for that."

Last week, the Fed announced the external experts who will participate in Warsh's task forces, giving committee members another potential line of inquiry.

5 Posts

7m ago

Warsh stops short of promising to not bail out crypto

By Claire Williams

Adobe Stock

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh wouldn't pledge to not use the Fed's powerful bailout emergency liquidity funds if there's a crisis in the crypto industry.

A stablecoin crash, if the industry grows and penetrates mainstream markets more than it does currently, would be similar to the panic in the money market mutual fund industry amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The Fed at that time swooped in with the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, a move that Warsh has criticized. Warsh has promised to pull back the Fed's role in markets, but that comes as concerns persist about what happens if a stablecoin issuer or third party fails.

"We do not want to be in the bailout business full stop," Warsh said in response to a question from Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif.

While Warsh stuck to his line that the Fed shouldn't be bailing out anyone, he wouldn't commit to not doing so.

"I want to be very clear, we're going to do everything we can to mitigate those kinds of extraordinary risks," he said. "We want to be in a position where we're not bailing out anyone."

9m ago

Warsh: balance sheet composition 'on edge of its authority'

By Kyle Campbell

Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg

The Fed chair is concerned that the central bank's balance sheet is too skewed toward longer-term bonds.

During his testimony to the House Committee on Financial Services, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh expressed concerns about the amount of long-dated Treasury securities that the central bank holds.

"I understand in periods of crises like the 2020 pandemic and the '08 crisis, central banks, by design, do step into markets to create a fair price, but in more benign times when our overall holdings are larger than the market, it's something where monetary policy is, in the language of former Chairman [Paul] Volker, on the edge of its authority."

Warsh has long been critical of the size of the Fed's balance sheet and the central bank's decision to continue growing its holdings after the post-pandemic recovery began in earnest.

He noted that he has assembled a task force that will shape how the Fed manages its assets and liabilities. He said he did not want to prejudge the outcome of that effort but shared his three principle thoughts about the balance sheet.

Warsh said the balance sheet is more than just a "plumbing" mechanism for the financial markets, that changes would not be made to balance-sheet policy without thoroughly explaining them to the public, and that his goal is to ensure balance-sheet practices steer clear of fiscal policies.

"We want to be out of the fiscal policy business, which is between [Congress] and the Treasury secretary and the president," he said. "Focus on monetary policy."

23m ago

Warsh sidesteps ethics questions

By Claire Williams

Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh avoided answering questions about conflicts of interest at the Fed, an issue that continues to plague the central bank after a series of trading scandals, and as lawmakers consider crypto rules that the Fed will have a role in implementing.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, questioned Warsh on his position on government officials profiting off the crypto industry that they are overseeing. Lawmakers are currently in the final stretches of negotiating a crypto market structure bill, the CLARITY Act, that is expected to come up for a vote at some point this week. Negotiations are revolving around ethics and concerns that President Donald Trump and his family are massively profiting off the industry while the government writes the rules that will govern it.

"Unfortunately president Trump undermined financial regulatory independence, including the Fed except when it comes to monetary policy," Waters said. "Should those officials be prohibited from any businesses where they have a role in regulating them?"

Warsh declined to answer the question.

"We're going to stay in our lane at the Federal Reserve," Warsh said. "Ranking member, you've given us a big job…and I'm focused on that."

31m ago

Warsh: Fed mistakes to blame for pandemic era inflation

By Kyle Campbell

Bloomberg News

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said the Fed's 2020 monetary policy framework is to blame for the runaway inflation that took off during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Warsh said the Fed's flexible average inflation framework — which called for 2% inflation to be an average rather than a hard line — was a "mistake," and one that led directly to the central bank bungling its price stability mandate.

"[The Fed] wasn't the first central bank to ask for a little more inflation and end up with a lot more," he said. "It was a mistake."

Warsh's assessment of the Fed's framework differs from the institutional view expressed to date. Former Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said the framework had no bearing on the way the Federal Open Market Committee handled inflation during the pandemic era. Rather, he has said the committee simply viewed the uptick in inflation as a "transitory" jump that would pass on its own.

Warsh said the Fed under Powell made the right decision to move away from flexible average inflation targeting during its 2025 monetary policy review, but said further changes are needed.

"Had that mistake been called out sooner, I don't believe we would have been burdened with this undue tax over the last five years to nearly the same degree," he said. "That's why my colleagues and I … thinking about them anew."

1h 5m ago

Warsh: 'no tolerance' for high inflation

By Kyle Campbell

Kevin Warsh, chairman of the US Federal Reserve

Samuel Corum/Bloomberg

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will tell lawmakers that high inflation has put an "undue burden" on households and businesses, according to prepared testimony released ahead of Tuesday's hearing.

In prepared remarks for the House Committee on Financial Services, Warsh said the stance of monetary policy is the ultimate driver of rapid inflation. He said he and the other members of the Federal Open Market Committee are committed to reigning in rapid price growth.

"The members of our Committee have no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation," Warsh said. "And we share a resolute commitment to restoring price stability."

In his remarks, Warsh said the economy is expanding and has proven to be resilient to a variety of headwinds, with a labor market that is "broadly stable." He noted that much of this strength rests on the bank of artificial intelligence investment.

"Investment in equipment overall increased about 8% for the year ending in the first quarter. Within that category, high-tech spending logged an especially impressive growth rate of nearly 25% on a four-quarter basis," Warsh said. "We don't know the extent to which the economy will benefit from the AI buildout."

He added that the Fed is monitoring developments in this space for their impact on both inflation and the job market.

Warsh also touched on his policy reform task forces and described the current moment as a "hinge point" in history.

"The task of this generation of policymakers — and of individuals throughout the private sector — is to ensure the American economy excels far into the future," he said.