“The White House is preparing for a showdown over who will be the next leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a high-stakes battle that could end up in court and slow President Trump’s effort to roll back banking industry regulations,” the Washington Post reports.

“Leadership of the agency, which Trump called a ‘total disaster’ on Twitter Saturday, was thrown into doubt on an otherwise slow holiday weekend after the White House and the CFPB’s outgoing head both named acting directors to head the regulatory watchdog. On Friday, Trump named Mick Mulvaney, a longtime critic of the agency and the Office of Management and Budget director, while Richard Cordray promoted his chief of staff, Leandra English, to deputy director and said she would become acting director.“

President Trump is expected to name Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, replacing Janet L. Yellen, the current chairwoman whose term expires early next year, the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Powell, a Fed governor since 2012, is a Republican with deep roots in the party’s establishment and in the financial industry. He has steadily supported the Fed’s current approach to monetary policy and financial regulation, creating an expectation that he would bring continuity to the role.”

President Trump says on Instagram video that he’ll announce his pick for Federal Reserve chair next week:

People are anxiously awaiting my decision as to who the next head of the Fed next week. I will be announcing it sometime next week. It will be a person who hopefully will do a fantastic job. I have somebody very specific in mind. I think everybody will be very impressed.

“President Trump delights in making spectacles out of personnel decisions. He conducted cabinet interviews at his New Jersey golf club, inviting members to gather and gawk. He summoned both finalists for a Supreme Court seat to the White House on the day of the announcement. And now he is conducting the most dramatic and drawn-out search for a Federal Reserve chairman in the long history of the stolid institution,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump is very publicly deliberating between two candidates with strikingly different views about the practice and purpose of monetary policy: Jerome H. Powell, a Fed governor who has voted in favor of every Fed policy decision since 2012, and John B. Taylor, a Stanford economist who is among the Fed’s most vocal critics.”

Politico: Trump leaning toward Powell for Fed chairman.

“Senate Republicans voted to strike down a sweeping new rule that would have allowed millions of Americans to band together in class-action lawsuits against financial institutions,” the New York Times reports.

“The overturning of the rule, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a 50-to-50 tie, will further loosen regulation of Wall Street as the Trump administration and Republicans move to roll back Obama-era policies enacted in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. By defeating the rule, Republicans are dismantling a major effort of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog created by Congress in the aftermath of the mortgage mess.”

President Trump “suggested that a soaring stock market might be ‘in a sense’ reducing the national debt, a statement that is not true, in any sense,” the New York Times reports.

Said Trump: “The country — we took it over and owed over $20 trillion. As you know the last eight years, they borrowed more than it did in the whole history of our country. So they borrowed more than $10 trillion, right? And yet, we picked up $5.2 trillion just in the stock market. Possibly picked up the whole thing in terms of the first nine months, in terms of value.”

He added: “So you could say, in one sense, we’re really increasing values. And maybe in a sense we’re reducing debt.”

President Trump casually told Fox News last night that the United States “would have to wipe out $75 billion in debt owed by Puerto Rico to bondholders around the world,” Politico reports.

“Wall Street promptly freaked out, sending Puerto Rican bonds into a tailspin and leading the White House to move swiftly to clean up Trump’s seemingly offhand remarks.”

“The White House has created a list of about a half-dozen candidates to be the next leader of the Federal Reserve, including its current chairwoman, Janet Yellen, and the president’s chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn,” the New York Times reports.

“The list also includes Jerome Powell, a member of the Fed’s board of governors; Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor; and the Stanford University economist John Taylor… Preliminary interviews with some candidates have already begun with an eye toward presenting finalists to President Trump later this year.”