WASHINGTON – The Trump administration will focus on finding a replacement for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell this fall, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Thursday, adding that officials had “a lot of good candidates.”

Bessent said it was up to the Fed to decide interest rates, although he added that if the U.S. central bank did not cut interest rates soon, any potential rate cut in September could be higher.

Asked if one could head both Treasury and the Fed at the same time, Bessent said that hadn’t been done since the 1930s, but did not explicitly rule out such a solution. Bessent has been named as a potential contender for the Fed role.

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(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)