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WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday oversaw the White House swearing-in of the new Federal Reserve chair and said he would like Kevin Warsh’s help in stimulating the economy even as he tried to emphasize that the nation’s central bank would remain independent.

Trump spent months criticizing Warsh’s predecessor, Jerome Powell, for being reluctant to cut interests rates, with the Republican president arguing that lower borrowing costs would provide an economic boost. By taking the unusual step of holding the ceremony in the East Room and not the Fed, Trump made clear his pleasure that Warsh is now in charge.

The war with Iran has caused gas prices to spike, unsettled financial markets and driven inflation concerns across the economy. Those developments have led to recent doubts about whether Warsh might heed Trump’s calls and push the Fed to lower rates.

Still, Trump said he had faith that Warsh would prioritize a strong economy.

“Thankfully, unlike some of his predecessors, Kevin understands that when the economy is booming, it is, that’s a good thing,” the president said. Trump said it was not necessary “to go crazy. Just let it go. We want it to boom.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office. Also on hand were House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Justice Brett Kavanaugh, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Cabinet members.

“I expect he will go down as one of the truly great chairmen of the Federal Reserve that we’ve ever had,” Trump said of Warsh.

Republican President Reagan swore in Alan Greenspan as Fed chair at the White House in 1987. Republican President George W. Bush attended the 2006 ceremony at central bank headquarters when Ben Bernanke became chair.

But having the event at the White House raises more questions about the Fed’s independence at a time when Trump has constantly sought to bend the independent central bank to his will.

Trump’s Department of Justice began an investigation into Powell and the Fed’s extensive building renovations. That drew backlash from lawmakers and the department scrapped the investigation. The Fed’s internal watchdog is now handling the matter. Powell’s term as chair ended last week, though he has opted to remain on the Fed board for now.

Trump made a point of saying during his remarks, “Honestly, I really mean this. This is not said in any other way: I want Kevin to be totally independent.”

“I want him to be independent and just do a great job,” Trump said. “Don’t look at me, don’t look at anybody. Just do your own thing.”

In the next breath, however, Trump said that “in the eyes of many, the Fed has lost its way in recent years” under his predecessor, Democratic President Biden. Trump also suggested that Warsh is looking to lead policies that promote “positive economic growth” and that doing so did not have to mean higher inflation.

Trump also noted that the stock market had risen Friday. “That means they like you,” he said of Warsh.

Warsh once harshly criticized Fed’s policies, including its low interest rate policies coming out of the pandemic, which he says contributed to the largest U.S. inflation spike in four decades in 2021-22. More recently, he has sometimes echoed Trump’s demands for lower rates.

Warsh says productivity gains from artificial intelligence will help the economy grow more quickly without spurring inflation, enabling the Fed to reduce borrowing costs. Many Fed officials, however, disagree that AI’s development will support rate cuts, especially because the technology has also been blamed for large-scale layoffs in the computer sector and other parts of the economy.

On Friday, Warsh promised “to lead a reform oriented Federal Reserve, learning from past successes and mistakes, both escaping static frameworks and models and upholding clear standards of integrity and performance.”

He told Trump that he believes “these years can bring unmatched prosperity that will raise living standards for Americans from all walks of life. And the Fed has something to do with it.”

Warsh further noted that the Fed’s mandate “is to promote price stability and maximum employment. When we pursue those aims with wisdom and clarity, independence and resolve, inflation can be lower; growth, stronger; real take home pay, higher and America … more prosperous.”

As he left the ceremony, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reinforced Trump’s message, predicting to reporters that Warsh will “do the right thing for inflation and growth.”

Weissert and Price write for the Associated Press.

Warsh will lead the central bank at a time when its independence has come under scrutiny amid political pressure.

Kevin Warsh has been sworn in as the new chair of the United States Federal Reserve Board of Governors, succeeding Jerome Powell, who has held the position since 2018.

Warsh took the oath of office on Friday, following a contentious nomination period, with the Senate voting along party lines on both his confirmation to the Board of Governors and as chairman. Only Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman broke with his Democratic colleagues to advance his nomination.

Warsh, 56, will lead the central bank at a time when its independence has come under scrutiny amid political pressure on the historically non-partisan institution.

US President Donald Trump, aware of that critique, in his opening remarks said, “I want Kevin to be totally independent and do a great job. Don’t look at me and don’t look at anybody. Just do your own job”.

During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, ahead of a vote by the full Senate, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren accused Warsh of being a “sock puppet” for Trump. Warsh denied the allegations and said he would remain independent in his monetary policy decisions.

When Joe Biden was president, Warsh advocated against cutting interest rates, but changed his tune when Trump took office. In December 2025, Trump said that he would only appoint someone to lead the central bank who agreed with him on cutting rates.

Regardless, Warsh cannot unilaterally make policy decisions. He is one of 12 voting members.

The first policy meeting Warsh will lead will be on June 16-17.

Inflationary pressures

Pressure from the White House to cut rates comes amid rising inflation in the US economy.

Consumer prices increased 0.6 percent in April after a 0.9 percent rise in March, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index report released by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this month.

On an annual basis, prices were also higher, rising 3.8 percent compared with the same month in 2025, marking the largest increase in three years. The largest surge has been in energy prices, which have risen 17.9 percent over the last year.

US consumers are feeling the strain at the pump. The average price for a gallon of petrol (3.78 litres) is $4.56, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), which tracks daily petrol prices. That is up from $2.98 per gallon on February 28, when the US and Israel first struck Iran.

After he was sworn in, Warsh said he was “not naive” about the challenges facing the US economy, and that inflation can be lower and growth strong.

Surging prices could put pressure on the central bank not to cut rates. Analysts from JPMorgan Chase forecasted last month that rates will likely remain unchanged until mid-2027 and anticipated then that rates could rise rather than be cut.

“With inflation having run significantly above 2 percent over the past five years, with further increases in inflation likely to occur as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, and with emergent price pressures in a few categories that appeared unrelated to tariffs or energy prices, the staff viewed the possibility that inflation would be more persistent than anticipated as a salient risk,” the central bank said in the newly released minutes of its April policy meeting.

CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which tracks the likelihood of monetary policy decisions, says there is a 97 percent chance that rates will remain unchanged at the next policy meeting.

May 9 (UPI) — Péter Magyar has been sworn in as Hungary’s new prime minister, ending Viktor Orban’s 16-year, right-wing leadership.

“I will not rule over Hungary — I will serve my country,” Magyar said Saturday after he took the oath of office in parliament, The BBC reported.

Magyar’s Tisza Party now holds 141 out of 199 seats in the parliament. That’s up from none because the party was formed two years ago.

Orbán’s Fidesz party dropped from 135 to 52 seats in the election in April.

Tisza is not a strong swing to the left; Magyar, 44, was once a Fidesz Party operative. But on March 15, 2024, he left the party to join Tisza, then an unknown startup.

Now, Magyar is a center-right politician: not quite a liberal or progressive, and definitely a conservative. But he is pro-Europe and European Union, which Orbán was not.

The EU flag was hung on the Hungarian parliament building for the first time since 2014.

Magyar had invited people to join him to “write Hungarian history” together Saturday and “step through the gate of regime change.” Supporters gathered outside the parliament building, cheering and waving Hungarian flags.

Leftist and liberal parties will have no seats in the parliament for the first time since 1990, when Hungary broke free of the Soviet Union. But Budapest’s liberal mayor Gergely Karácsony said the new regime is still cause for celebration.

“Teachers fired, civilians and journalists humiliated, small churches torn apart,” Karácsony wrote on social media. “We can finally leave this era behind us — but first, let us remember the everyday heroes and express our gratitude with a farewell to the system.”

“This is the first time I feel like it’s good to be Hungarian,” Erzsébet Medve, 68, from Miskolc in northeastern Hungary, told The Guardian. “I feel like I could cry.”

Orbán and the Fidesz government cut education funding in Hungary. “The government had enough money, but they didn’t spend it there,” said Medve, a teacher.

Marianna Szűcs, 70, said she hoped Hungary would become more livable. “Now we feel like our children and grandchildren have a future here.”

New Tisza ministers said that while there will be no revenge against Orban’s people, those guilty of financial crimes will be held accountable. There will be a new office created to “recover stolen assets.”

“I don’t think that we should talk about a guillotine,” said Zoltán Tarr, incoming minister for Social Relations and Culture.

“We are talking about investigations and actions which are totally in line with the rule of law. Interestingly enough, the current chief prosecutor, and the police, have started certain investigations which they did not start before the election. They are questioning people.”

The Magyar government plans to convince the EU to release $20 billion in funds that the EU had held back from the Orbán government.

“I’m not worried, I’m excited,” Tarr said. “We are serving the country. We are serving the people. We are not here to rule. We are here to serve. We are here to fulfill a mandate.”

Fernandez enters office with her right-wing party holding absolute majority in the country’s legislature.

Laura Fernandez has been sworn in as Costa Rica’s new president and has vowed to fight rising crime in the Central American country, as well as maintain close ties with the United States.

Fernandez defeated a crowded field in the February 1 vote to replace outgoing president Rodrigo Chaves, who has remained a close ally of US President Donald Trump.

In an unorthodox move, Chaves is set to remain in the government as dual minister of the presidency and finance, assuring outsized influence in the incoming administration.

Further underscoring plans to maintain close ties with the US, Fernandez has appointed her second vice president, Douglas Soto, as ambassador to Washington.

Kristi Noem, the US special envoy spearheading the Trump administration’s militaristic approach to Latin America, dubbed “Shield of the Americas”, was at Friday’s inauguration.

So too was Israeli President Isaac Herzog, as part of efforts to boost ties with the region during the political fallout from the genocide in Gaza.

The 39-year-old Fernandez has vowed sweeping reforms to Costa Rica’s judiciary and security laws, as well as a broad crackdown on crime.

Last week, as she introduced her new security minister, Gerald Campos, Fernandez vowed “a war without quarter, a heavy-handed war against organised crime”.

Costa Rica has long been considered one of the most stable countries in Central America, but crime has surged in recent years as it has increasingly become a transit route for smuggling drugs to the US.

Costa Rica is building a maximum security prison modelled on El Salvador’s anti-terrorism CECOT centre, where hundreds of Venezuelans were held without trial after deportation ⁠from the US early last year.

Like El Salvador, Costa Rica has also agreed to accept non-citizens deported from the US per an agreement signed in March.

Rights groups have condemned the so-called “third-country agreements” for stranding deportees in countries in which they have no ties and could be subject to inhumane conditions.

Fernandez’s right-wing Sovereign People’s Party (PPSO) won 31 of 57 seats in the single-chamber legislature.

That gives her party an absolute majority as she takes office.