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Phelan Testifies at His Senate Banking Confirmation Hearing, Jun. 25, 2026

June 25, 2026 · U.S. Senate Banking Committee GOP · 1:38:10

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What happened

Christopher Phelan testified on June 25, 2026, before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs at the nomination hearing on his selection to be Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, held jointly with the nominations of John Crews to the National Credit Union Administration Board and Jeffrey Ledbetter to be Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to the committee. Chairman Tim Scott presided.

The hearing’s sharpest exchange came with Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, who pressed Phelan on whether headline inflation was higher than it had been in February 2025. Phelan answered that economists tend to focus on core inflation because food and energy prices are volatile, and that core inflation was lower than when President Trump took office; pressed further, he acknowledged that the last headline reading, 4.2% year over year, was higher than the 2.8% figure Warren cited for February 2025, as the committee minority’s transcript of the exchange records. On wages, Phelan said inflation-adjusted weekly earnings were higher than on the day President Trump took office and that real wage growth in this administration is positive; Warren countered with an annual wage-growth figure of 3.4% and concluded that Phelan had, in her words, “disqualified himself in five minutes” — criticism carried here as the ranking member stated it. The Senate confirmed Phelan on August 7, 2026, by a vote of 51–47, and he assumed office on August 10.

Why it matters

This hearing is the founding document of Phelan’s CEA chairmanship: the Council of Economic Advisers is the White House’s own economics shop, and the exchange over which inflation measure tells the truth is the argument his tenure will be scored against on this site. Phelan took the chair after a long interim — nominated April 21, 2026, he served as Vice Chair from July while Pierre Yared acted as chair — restoring a permanent economic-analysis seat as the midterm economic argument peaks.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: Phelan’s confirmation-hearing position — that core inflation and real wages have improved since President Trump took office, as he stated it — to be checked against the CEA’s published analysis and the inflation and wage data that follow.

Sources: Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, nomination hearing on Christopher Phelan, John Crews, and Jeffrey Ledbetter, June 25, 2026 (full hearing as carried by the committee’s majority channel, embedded above; also carried by C-SPAN); Senate Banking Committee minority release and exchange transcript, June 25, 2026; senate.gov record on nomination PN931-6 (confirmed August 7, 2026, 51–47). All figures and characterizations as stated by Dr. Phelan and committee members at the hearing.