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Warsh Delivers the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Senate Banking Committee

July 15, 2026 · U.S. Senate Banking Committee GOP · 2:09:05

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held its hearing on “The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress” on July 15, 2026, with Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh presenting the report in his first semiannual testimony since taking office on May 22, and Chairman Tim Scott presiding. Warsh reported on the Federal Open Market Committee’s June 16–17 meeting, at which the Committee voted unanimously to hold the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.50 to 3.75 percent, and he restated the Committee’s commitment to its 2 percent inflation goal under its dual mandate, as he described it in his statement.

The June meeting — Warsh’s first as Chair — had already rewritten the Fed’s communications: the post-meeting statement was cut to roughly 130 words with all forward-guidance language removed, Warsh declined to submit his own projection to the Summary of Economic Projections, and he announced five working groups to review the Fed’s communications, its balance sheet, its data sources, productivity and jobs, and its inflation framework. The June projections showed the median official expecting the federal funds rate at 3.8 percent at the end of 2026, with nine of eighteen participants penciling in at least one rate increase this year, as the projections were reported at the time. In his June press conference Warsh had vowed the Committee would “deliver price stability,” saying: “Persistently high prices are a burden for the American people, but the recent past need not be prologue.”

Why it matters

The semiannual testimony is the Fed Chair’s formal account to Congress, and Warsh’s first one set the terms on which his break with the Powell era would proceed: no forward guidance, no personal dot, and a framework review — all while the President who appointed him continued to demand rate cuts the Committee was instead signaling might become a hike. The September 16, 2026 decision to raise rates by 25 basis points was the follow-through this testimony foreshadowed.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: Warsh’s July 15, 2026 semiannual testimony presenting the Monetary Policy Report — the June unanimous hold at 3.50–3.75 percent, the end of forward guidance, and the five working groups — as stated at the hearing and in the June FOMC record, to be checked against the September 2026 FOMC decision.

Sources: U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, “The Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress,” July 15, 2026 (committee’s official upload, embedded above); Federal Open Market Committee statement and Summary of Economic Projections, June 17, 2026; Chair Warsh’s June 17, 2026 press conference as reported the same day. All figures and characterizations as stated by Chair Warsh and committee members.