By Nick Timiraos and Meridith McGraw

President Trump has said for months that he's made up his mind about who should lead the Federal Reserve. But with each passing week without an announcement, some people close to the process aren't sure any of his four finalists fully meet his requirements.

The difficulty: Trump wants something that may not exist -- a new chair who will pursue his demands for lower interest rates while still commanding enough credibility on Wall Street and from his colleagues to deliver them.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been managing the search and, after ruling himself out of contention, has presented Trump with four finalists: Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor; Christopher Waller, a current Fed governor whom Trump appointed to the board in 2020; Rick Rieder, a senior executive at BlackRock; and Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council.

Each represents a different trade-off between the two things Trump says he wants.

The tension was on display last week when Trump addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "They're all respected. They're all great.... Everyone could do, I think, a fantastic job," he said of his finalists.

Then he telegraphed his core anxiety about the selection -- that candidates "say everything I want to hear" during interviews, only to assert their independence once they have been confirmed. "It's amazing how people change once they have the job," Trump said. "It's too bad, sort of disloyalty, but they got to do what they think is right."

In a Dec. 23 post on Truth Social, the president laid out what he called "The Trump Rule" -- a demand that the Fed abandon an approach to inflation that has conditioned markets to treat good economic news as bad news, since it means rates won't come down as fast. He concluded with an unambiguous warning: "Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!"

The two statements capture the bind Trump has created for himself as he searches for someone to replace Jerome Powell, whose term expires in May.

Trump and Bessent have for weeks suggested an announcement is just around the corner. That guidance has shifted so many times that some people close to the process have begun to wonder whether the president is looking for something he won't ever find.

"President Trump will make this announcement at the appropriate time. Until then, anyone pretending to know who President Trump's Fed Chair pick will be is kidding themselves," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

Trump selected Powell to lead the Fed eight years ago after concluding Powell would be most likely to support lower interest rates. But he has raged at Powell in the years since, frustrated that the former private-equity investor hasn't sought out or heeded his views on where to set rates.

The Fed is expected to hold interest rates steady when it concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday. The decision is likely to draw fresh criticism from a president who has declared inflation defeated and called for aggressive cuts.

Of the four finalists, Hassett is the candidate Trump knows best and the one most aligned with his economic agenda. But naming his own adviser to the role could invite questions about Fed independence that some analysts have said could spook the bond market -- the opposite of what Trump and Bessent want.

Trump seemed to take Hassett out of contention earlier this month when he said he didn't want to lose a loyal and vocal television surrogate.

Warsh has praised Trump on television, spent five years on the central bank's board and looks the part of a Fed chair. But he is close to Stan Druckenmiller, the billionaire investor who has been publicly skeptical of the case for rate cuts, and was himself an inflation hawk during his time on the board -- including after the 2008-09 financial crisis.

He is also seen as an establishment Republican in a party that has moved away from the free-trade, entitlement-cutting orthodoxy of former House Speaker Paul Ryan. "Warsh is a great pick if this was Paul Ryan's GOP. It isn't," said Neil Dutta, an economist at Renaissance Macro.

Trump has consistently said he favors "both Kevins," and he doesn't have a personal relationship with the other two finalists.

Waller is popular on Wall Street in part because he most resembles the man Trump is trying to replace: a Fed insider who has made intellectually consistent arguments for lower rates that prioritize the health of the labor market.

But Waller has no personal relationship with Trump and wasn't given much of an opportunity to build one during a 30-minute interview last month that some people said didn't impress Trump. According to people familiar with the meeting, Trump pressed Waller on his support for the Fed's 50-basis-point rate cut in September 2024 -- a decision Trump has characterized as politically motivated to help Democrats before the election.

The meeting was sandwiched between a somber ceremony at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer of American soldiers killed in Syria and a prime-time address to the nation Trump delivered from the White House that night.

Rieder is even more of an outsider because he hasn't served at the Fed or in any government role. That would make him the first Fed chair without any ties to Washington since G. William Miller, a former Textron executive picked by President Jimmy Carter for a term that began in 1978.

As BlackRock's chief investment officer of global fixed income, Rieder oversees more than $3 trillion and has been a consistent advocate for views that support lower interest rates -- positions so long held that they are rooted in his market outlook rather than any ambition to lead the Fed. That track record could appeal to a president worried about nominees who change their tune once confirmed.

Rieder has also impressed Bessent and other senior officials with plans to address housing affordability, a top economic priority for the administration.

But he comes with baggage that could give pause to any president seeking a loyalist. Rieder has no relationship with Trump or his inner circle, and unlike Warsh or Hassett, he hasn't built a public profile as a Trump supporter.

BlackRock has drawn suspicion from Trump's political base over its embrace of environmental, social and corporate-governance investing. And Rieder's political donations have gone seemingly everywhere except to Trump: He gave to Pete Buttigieg's Democratic presidential campaign in 2020 and to Nikki Haley, one of Trump's primary rivals, in 2023.

For all the speculation, there is no urgency to name a nominee. Powell's term doesn't expire until mid-May, leaving plenty of time for Senate confirmation even if Trump doesn't make a decision until late February. That timeline would be well within the historical norm for announcing a new chair to replace an incumbent.