WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said Tuesday he has been approached by White House officials “in recent months” about the possibility of serving on the Fed’s board of governors.
Bullard characterized the discussions as “exploratory in nature.” He said he told the Trump administration that he is happy in his current position and noted that he currently sits on the Fed’s rate-setting committee. But he declined to provide more detail or to specify the timing of his most recent contact.
“On the White House question, I don’t think I’m going to go any further. If they want to talk about it, they can,” Bullard told reporters. “There are lots of feelers, lots of channels, lots of speculation about this kind of thing, so it’s not uncommon at all.”
The Trump administration is searching for candidates to fill two vacancies on the Fed’s seven-member board, which helps to set monetary policy and wide-reaching financial regulation. President Donald Trump has frequently criticized the Fed for keeping interest rates too high, likening the 105-year-old central bank, in a Monday tweet, to “a stubborn child.” Bullard has tended to favor lower interest rates than some of his fellow central bankers in recent years.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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