Trump finally gets his man at the Fed. Will Kevin Warsh disappoint him?

It has taken eight and a half years, but on Wednesday President Donald Trump finally succeeded in reversing one of the few mistakes he has admitted to making as president. In November 2017, Trump chose Jerome Powell to chair the Federal Reserve, opting for someone he saw as malleable over a charismatic but youthful former Fed governor, Kevin Warsh. Trump has regretted it ever since.

The question that has consumed the markets as the Senate moved toward Wednesday’s confirmation is whether Trump will come to regret this decision, too. Fed chairs “change once they get the job,” Trump said in January. If Warsh loses Trump’s backing, the new Fed chair may not have the bulwark of congressional support that helped Powell resist Trump. 

Whether Warsh can succeed in the mission of “regime change” he has pledged for the Fed will hinge on his ability to navigate this exceptionally challenging political landscape. But while he starts his tenure at a significant political disadvantage compared to Powell, Warsh’s history and his relationship with Trump suggest the new chair is more likely to blaze an independent trail than his detractors believe. And he may do so in a collaborative way that would surprise those who are bracing for immediate friction.

Warsh, 56, was confirmed Wednesday with just 54 votes, with Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania as the only Democratic “yes” vote. That’s the weakest support a Fed chair has received since the position became Senate-confirmed in 1977. The previous record low was held by Democrat-nominated Janet Yellen, who received 56 votes in 2014, including 11 from Republicans. 

Among those who voted against Warsh this time was Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. That is a reversal from 2006, when Schumer backed Warsh for a Fed governorship because Warsh “knows unequivocally that the Fed must be independent, nonideological, and nonpartisan.” Warsh was confirmed unanimously that year.

Powell found a vital ally in the Senate in the face of Trump’s attacks. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., threatened to delay Warsh’s confirmation until the Department of Justice dropped a criminal investigation into the Fed. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro did so in April, clearing the way for Warsh.

“Powell met more than twice as often with U.S. senators than his predecessors,” University of Maryland researchers who studied Fed chairs’ calendars found in a study published in April. 

Many longtime Fed watchers have already written off Warsh as a lost cause, because they seem him as either deluded in thinking he can sway the Fed’s hardened bureaucracy or because he is a mere “sock puppet” for Trump, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Warsh’s most prominent progressive critic, calls…