Lisa Cook Fights Back: Trump Won't Take No
Cook, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022 and the first Black woman to serve on the Fed's board of governors, has become the central figure in a constitutional standoff between the White House and the judiciary.
Lisa Cook Fights Back: Trump Won't Take No
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is moving to remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook from her position for a second time, defying a Supreme Court ruling that explicitly upheld the Federal Reserve's independence and blocked his first attempt to dismiss her, according to The Guardian.
Cook, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022 and the first Black woman to serve on the Fed's board of governors, has become the central figure in a constitutional standoff between the White House and the judiciary. The Supreme Court's decision was unambiguous. The White House has chosen to treat it as a suggestion.
The renewed push comes against a fraught monetary backdrop. US Treasuries rallied after July jobs data showed employers unexpectedly cut payrolls — a signal that the Fed's rate path may be softening — making the composition of the Fed's board a live question with immediate market consequences, per Bloomberg.
Trump's parallel confirmation of Christopher Phelan to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, a former Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis adviser, suggests the administration is assembling institutional pressure from multiple angles: challenge the personnel it cannot legally remove, install loyalists where it can.
Lisa Cook has not resigned. That single fact, in this climate, is the story — one woman holding a line that a Supreme Court ruling was apparently not enough to hold on its own.
The House has not yet acted. The Fed has not yet blinked.
