The US Senate on Wednesday confirmed Kevin Warsh as chairman of the Federal Reserve, putting the 56-year-old lawyer and financier at the helm as the US central bank grapples with steep inflation that could make it difficult to cut interest rates demanded by President Donald Trump.

The most partisan—U.S. The Senate voted 54-45 to confirm the Fed chairman. A single Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted with the Republican majority.

His swearing-in for the Fed chairman’s four-year term as Fed governor approved by the Senate on Tuesday and a concurrent 14-year term await final White House signatures on paperwork sent by the Senate. The White House did not respond to questions about when Trump would complete the final paperwork or the timing of his inauguration.

Warsh will take over from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends on Friday but who will remain Fed governor. Fed Governor Stephen Miran, currently the central bank’s biggest proponent of rate cuts, will vacate his seat on the board to make room for Warsh. Expected to preside over the Fed’s next meeting on June 16-17, Warsh joins a central bank whose policymakers are engaged in a heated debate over the direction of interest rates.

Some central bankers have argued that the Fed should consider a rate hike, worried that inflation is widening beyond the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs and oil price hikes from the Iran war.

The Labor Department reported on Wednesday that the producer price index, the main component of overall inflation, rose 6% in April from a year earlier. That’s the fastest pace since December 2022, when the Fed was fighting a 40-year record jump in prices with sharp rate hikes.

Analysts expect the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index to have risen 3.8% last month, well ahead of the Fed’s 2% target.

As part of his first meeting, Warsh may have to navigate a divided group of policymakers with growing support for more hawkish language indicating that rate cuts are likely in the coming months. At least five of the Fed’s 19 policymakers have said they want the change by April. Also in June, Fed policymakers are scheduled to release new rate-path forecasts. March projections for a single rate cut this year look increasingly stale as the unemployment rate hovers around 4.3%, indicating that the labor market does not need the support of a rate cut. However, inflation has continued to rise: A government report on Tuesday showed that consumer prices rose at the fastest pace in three years in April.

Financial markets now expect no change to the Fed’s 3.5%-3.75% policy rate target this year, with a rate hike as soon as January.

Warsh is no stranger to dissent within the Fed. As a Fed governor during Ben Bernanke’s tenure as chairman, he expressed reservations about policy, though he left the board in 2011 before ever casting a dissenting vote.

At his confirmation hearing, he told senators that he welcomes a “family fight” at the Fed as policymakers hammer out the right monetary policy response to economic conditions. Unlike Warsh’s first tenure at the Fed, the current president is badgering the central bank to cut rates. Trump has also launched what Powell called a “series of legal attacks” on the central bank, including last year’s attempt to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. Trump’s Justice Department also opened a criminal investigation into Powell, which it has dropped for now but has left the door open to resurrecting him.

Powell and others have said those attacks threaten the Fed’s ability to set interest rates in line with economic fundamentals. Powell has chosen to stick with the buck tradition and the Fed after the end of his term as chair, at least until the DOJ investigation is definitively closed.

Warsh also faces a different inflationary backdrop than when he was last Fed governor. Then, inflation was mostly running below the Fed’s 2% target, though Warsh argued that policymakers should tighten monetary conditions with smaller balance sheets.

Trump expects Warsh to advocate for lower rates, and Warsh expressed support for Trump’s views. Still, he told senators at his confirmation hearing last month that he made no promises.