Trump expands pool of possible Treasury picks as top candidates jockey for the job

(CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump is casting a wider net for Treasury secretary after jockeying among his top two candidates sent him looking for an alternative solution, according to multiple people familiar with the process.

Trump is now considering Kevin Warsh, a former investment banker and former Federal Reserve governor whom Trump has often consulted for economic advice, and Marc Rowan, the billionaire co-founder of private equity firm Apollo Global Management, these people said.

Trump has a personal affinity for Warsh, who is married to an heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetic fortune. Warsh has been on Trump’s shortlist for chairman of the Federal Reserve for years and has remained a close member of his orbit.

Rowan, on the other hand, has the backing of many close Trump allies, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has consulted with Rowan on foreign and economic policy. Kushner enlisted Rowan to participate in a meeting with the Qatari prime minister in 2023 on the conflict in the Middle East, and Rowan in 2020 made suggestions to Kushner for loosening qualifications on a pandemic-era lending program. Apollo has also extended loans to Kushner Companies to refinance debt on a Chicago skyscraper.

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty visited Mar-a-Lago over the weekend to interview for a variety of roles, and two sources said he remains in the mix for Treasury. Hagerty ran his own eponymous private equity and investment firm and has served on the boards of directors of several companies before re-entering politics. During Trump’s first term, he served as US ambassador to Japan before resigning in 2019 to run for the Senate.

Treasury secretary is seen as the top financial job in any administration and has become a trophy position for many well-heeled Wall Street donors. The expanded slate of potential Trump picks comes after a week of bitter infighting among the top two candidates — hedge fund manager Scott Bessent and Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive Howard Lutnick, who also co-chairs the Trump transition — that led the president-elect to scrap a decision he expected to announce on Friday after markets closed.

A full week before that, Trump had been nearing a decision to name Bessent to the post. Allies said Trump liked his billionaire bona fides and the fact that he converted to the MAGA movement after working for Democratic financier George Soros. Meanwhile, an aggressive campaign from Lutnick has earned the support of Trump acolytes Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – the president-elect’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary – but seriously irked others in Trump’s camp and may have caused him to sour on his transition co-chair.

Bessent, who has led a more understated quest for the role compared to the brash self-promotion aides describe of Lutnick, called Musk on Saturday to try to win him over before the tech billionaire attended a United Fighting Championship with Trump in New York City. Musk, however, had posted on X in support of Lutnick. “My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice,” he wrote on X Saturday morning, whereas Lutnick “will actually enact change.”

Both Bessent and Lutnick are expected to get roles within the administration, but those exact titles remain unclear. Bessent is believed to be a contender to lead Trump’s National Economic Council if he is not selected for Treasury, sources said.

Amid the infighting and indecision – and with the markets on edge awaiting a name – Trump waded into the debate on Truth Social on Thursday by announcing whom he would not be selecting: Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, who has praised Trump’s policies but recently had been aligning himself with Vice President Kamala Harris.

CNN’s Phil Mattingly and Lauren Fox contributed to this report.

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