Vice President Joe Biden has confirmed that his choice to replace Janet Yellen at the Federal Reserve is Lael Brainard, a former Treasury official who has been considered a candidate for the past two years. Ms. Brainard, one of only a handful of women to serve as an undersecretary at the U.S. Treasury, has a PhD in economics from Yale. When President Obama nominated former Chair Ben Bernanke in 2010, Ms. Brainard was one of the administration’s first choice to join the Fed’s board, but withdrew her name in the face of Republican opposition. Now, after Donald Trump’s election, Mr. Obama has used a lame-duck clause in the Treasury Department to reopen negotiations on the appointment of Ms. Brainard.
Last month, Mr. Obama’s former treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, told The New York Times, “I’m thrilled and honored that I’ve known Lael Brainard for so long and that she’s been a key member of the team that I’ve built to support a stronger economy.”
Mr. Obama’s picks have most recently been Janet Yellen and Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor who tried to fill the seat on the panel left open by Bernanke after Trump’s election.
Mr. Obama’s selection is likely to be the first woman to fill a Fed chief role, and on Thursday, he made a mention of it in a speech commemorating the 35th anniversary of the birth of the late economist Milton Friedman.
Read the full story at CNN.
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