Donald Trump is once again targeting independent institutions — this time threatening to fire Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor and the first Black woman ever appointed to the position.
“I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign,” Trump told reporters Friday, escalating a political assault on the Fed that breaks with more than a century of norms.
Cook, appointed by President Biden in 2022 to a term lasting until 2038, has already made her position clear. “I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position,” she said earlier this week. “I do intend to take any questions about my financial history seriously … and so I am gathering the accurate information to answer any legitimate questions and provide the facts.”
Trump’s push to oust her comes after a criminal referral by Bill Pulte, head of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency and a Trump ally. Pulte accuses Cook of mortgage fraud — claiming she misrepresented her residence in Michigan and Georgia to get better loan terms in 2021. That was before she joined the Fed.
But critics see something much more sinister.
Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed Trump’s move as a naked power grab. “President Trump cannot illegally fire independent Fed Board members,” she said on X. “Anyone can see he is trying to find a scapegoat for his failure to lower costs for Americans.”
By law, Federal Reserve governors — including the Chair — can only be removed by the president for cause, and no president has ever tried. Cook hasn’t been charged with anything, let alone convicted.
Still, Trump appears determined to stack the Fed with loyalists. Earlier this month, he nominated Stephen Miran, a hardliner on tariffs and a former White House economic adviser, to replace another Fed governor who abruptly stepped down.
All this comes as the Fed — one of the few remaining U.S. institutions still seen as nonpartisan — weighs whether to cut interest rates. In a speech Friday at the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said a rate cut is still on the table, but offered no timeline.
Trump, meanwhile, continues to blame the Fed for not doing more to bring down interest rates — and now appears ready to torch its independence to get his way.
Watch the clip below:
Q: "Are you going to fire Lisa Cook, the Fed Governor?"
President Trump: "Yeah, I'll fire her if she doesn't resign. What she did was bad." pic.twitter.com/dajaIOVKK8
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 22, 2025
