Axios

President Trump's nominee to lead the Federal Reserve committed to keeping monetary policy independent from politics at his confirmation hearing Tuesday — as Trump showed no signs of de-escalating a stalemate that is holding up Kevin Warsh's nomination to lead the central bank.

The big picture: Warsh, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, presented a vision of the Fed "staying in its lane" and focusing on price stability, implicitly attacking the central bank's leadership over the last decade for mission creep.

The AI buildout is the new, powerful force widening America's trade gap.

Why it matters: Shrinking the trade deficit and winning the AI race rank high on President Trump's economic agenda — but those aims are pulling in opposite directions, as AI-related products get a lighter tariff treatment.

Starbucks announced plans Tuesday to invest $100 million and bring 2,000 jobs to Nashville as it builds a major corporate hub to anchor its Southeast expansion.

Why it matters: The coffee giant's corporate footprint in the city will be bigger than initially disclosed — and reflects Starbucks' "Back to Starbucks" turnaround strategy, including plans to open thousands of new coffeehouses in the coming years.

Amazon's One Medical is rolling out a national GLP-1 program as demand for weight-loss drugs surges, the company announced Tuesday.

Why it matters: The boom in drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy is reshaping obesity care — but also exposing gaps in how patients are treated.

Workers have never been more dissatisfied with their pay or their ability to get ahead. But the likelihood of moving to a new employer is at multiyear lows.

• Those are the bleak findings from a New York Federal Reserve Bank survey, which showed plummeting job satisfaction alongside diminishing odds that workers will be able to make a change.

Why it matters: For most workers, switching jobs is the fastest route to a raise or a promotion. But with hiring at historically low levels, that path has all but disappeared.

At Kevin Warsh's Fed confirmation hearing today, Republicans will cast him as a change agent ready to shake up a tradition-bound institution.

Driving the news: In remarks introducing Warsh obtained by Axios, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) will say the onetime Fed governor "brings a reformer's heart" and "will shake up a stagnant institution at a time when change is sorely needed."

We wrote last week about the societal, academic and economic implications of young Americans scared of AI ("The kids aren't AI-right, Part 1"). Today, we dig deeper into job panic.

Young Americans are scared of more than AI. They're downright panicky about finding a job at all.

• Only 20% of young workers told Gallup in Q4 last year that it's a good time to find a quality job, down from 62% at the pollster's peak for the measure in October 2021. You rarely see mood swings this severe.

Why it matters: For 70 years, a bachelor's degree was the most reliable on-ramp to a stable career. That's no longer true. And that's before AI hits entry-level work at scale.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has resigned to move into a private sector job, White House communications director Steven Cheung announced Monday.

• Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling will serve as acting Labor secretary, he said.

The big picture: Chavez-DeRemer has faced scrutiny over several misconduct scandals, including allegations of mishandling department funds and inappropriate relationships with staff, which the Trump administration called "baseless."

President Trump said Monday he'll use a Cold War-era national security law to try and bolster domestic production of motor fuels and electricity.

Why it matters: His use of the Defense Production Act comes amid high gasoline prices during the Iran war, and rising power costs.

Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO of Apple. In nearly 15 years as chief executive, Cook turned Apple into a global powerhouse, building on the legacy of his legendary predecessor Steve Jobs.

Why it matters: Cook, who oversaw the launch of the Apple Watch and AirPods, will be replaced by hardware expert John Ternus.

The Trump administration is ramping up pressure on the beef industry amid mounting consternation over near record-high meat prices.

Why it matters: Ground beef averaged about $6.70 per pound in March — about 16% higher than a year earlier, highlighting persistent cost pressures for U.S. consumers.

President Trump railed against Iran war critics in a series of Truth Social posts, insisting he's under "no pressure" to make a deal with Tehran as peace talks remained in limbo Monday.

The big picture: Ahead of a looming deadline for the ceasefire ending, Trump denied that Israel had dragged the U.S. into the war, saying "Time is not my adversary," for ending it and his eventual deal will be "FAR BETTER" than former President Obama's 2015 nuclear deal.

Here are a few questions we would ask Fed chair nominee Kevin Warsh at Tuesday's Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing, if we were suddenly offered a spot on the dais.

The Federal Reserve Act indicates that governors can be removed for cause. What, in your view, constitutes cause and what do you believe a president needs to do to establish it if he wants to fire a governor?

Do you believe, as Sen. Thom Tillis (R.-N.C.) does, that the Justice Department inquiry into the Fed's building project is a pretext to pressure the Fed on rates policy? Do you believe it should be dropped?

You've argued for a new version of the 1951 Treasury-Fed accord that has shaped the roles of the two entities for 75 years. What would this consist of?

You've been critical of several mainstays of modern central banking: reliance on complex macroeconomic models, "data-dependence" and "forward guidance," to indicate where officials think policy is going. What would you replace those tools and frameworks with?

Kevin Warsh has been lying low since becoming the president's choice to be the world's most powerful central banker. Tuesday's Senate Banking Committee hearing will likely be the lone opportunity for public questioning of his views and intentions.

The big picture: Democrats are likely to focus their questioning on Warsh's commitment to preserving the Fed's independence from the White House and on potential conflicts of interest from his sprawling investment portfolio.

• But there are broader questions worthy of exploring around how he envisions shifting Fed policy in the short and long runs, and how he seeks to reform an institution that he has attacked as unwieldy and suffering from mission creep.
• It is outside modern historical experience for a Fed chair nominee to have a record of such sharp, vocal criticism of the institution.

Zoom out: A Fed chair inevitably faces challenges and crises that can't be foreseen during a confirmation hearing.

• Nobody asked Alan Greenspan in the summer of 1987 how he would deal with a stock market crash, but that's what happened when he was two months into the job. Nobody expected Ben Bernanke to bail out banks or Jerome Powell to grapple with a pandemic.
• But the questioning can reveal the intellectual instincts that will guide the nominee once in the big chair at the central bank.
• Warsh has explained his views over the last couple of years in newspaper op-eds, set-piece speeches and friendly podcast appearances. The hearing will be an opportunity for senators on both sides of the aisle to stress-test them.

Zoom in: On near-term policy, Warsh has argued that the productivity surge being unleashed by AI and by the Trump administration's tax and deregulatory policies justify lower interest rates because that would allow for non-inflationary growth.

• Some current Fed policymakers have noted factors pointing in the other direction: that high growth in productivity implies a higher cost of capital and that the rapid data center buildout may be contributing to some inflationary pressure.

More broadly, how urgently will Warsh seek interest rate cuts in light of a new surge of inflation driven by the Iran war?

• Should the fact that inflation has been above the Fed's target for more than five years cause the central bank to resist further rate cuts until it can get price pressures more firmly under control?

State of play: There are bigger questions around what Warsh's chairmanship will mean for policy in the medium term. He has been sharply critical of the central bank's $6.6 trillion balance sheet, arguing that it gives the institution too big an imprint on financial markets.

• But trying to shrink it and tilt it toward plain-vanilla holdings of Treasury bills carries its own risks.
• One is disruption to the banking system and money markets that have come to rely on high levels of reserves.
• Another is that if the Fed tries to contract its $2 trillion holdings of mortgage-backed securities too abruptly, it could cause a spike in mortgage rates, resulting in further pain for homebuyers.

What's next: While Warsh was an architect of the Fed's 2008 financial crisis response, he argues that the central bank has been too willing to use what were supposed to be once-in-a-lifetime tools to combat every crisis that comes along.

• In particular, he has called out the Fed's interventions during the pandemic and after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 as beyond the central bank's proper remit.

It raises an important question: If a crisis arises during his tenure, as it did for Greenspan, Bernanke and Powell, how will he respond when it's his call to make?

U.S. stock futures were down Monday morning as markets absorbed weekend events that made it clear the Iran war is not over.

• The price of Brent oil futures, which took a historic plunge on Friday are now back up 5% to where they were before.

Why it matters: The economic fallout will likely intensify, as short-term measures to deal with the unprecedented energy shock no longer suffice.

• Whether that matters to markets is unclear.

U.S. businesses that paid tariffs that the Supreme Court ruled were illegal can start applying for refunds Monday.

Why it matters: The Trump administration's launch of an online portal for tariff refund applications marks the first phase of its efforts to comply with court orders to reimburse billions of dollars in paid tariffs and interest to importers.

Oil prices are up around 6% Sunday evening after the weekend brought fresh escalation of the U.S.-Iran conflict.

Why it matters: The jump after international markets opened reverses a large chunk of the sharp decline Friday, when President Trump and Iran's foreign minister claimed the Strait of Hormuz was opening to tanker traffic.

American forces seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship after it tried to bypass a U.S. naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman, President Trump said Sunday.

Why it matters: It's the first seizure and the first ship fired upon since the U.S. blockade went into effect last Sunday in response to Iran effectively holding the Strait or Hormuz hostage since the war began on Feb. 28.