Welcome back to Talking Feds, a roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests for a dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day.

I'm Jonathan Alter, author of the Old Goats newsletter

on Substack and an MSNBC contributor, and I have the pleasure of guest hosting for Harry Litman,

who will be back next week. It was a week in which Trump found new ways to push the limits

of his power. He began by attempting to fire Lisa Cook, governor of the Federal Reserve,

marking a sharp escalation in Trump's attempt to dictate economic policy to the Fed.

Justice Cook vowed to sue to block the firing. News broke that Health and Human Services

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had dismissed CDC director Susan Monteraz.

She too challenged her firing, but Trump backed Kennedy and flexed his authority to make the dismissal official.

Beyond Washington, U.S. envoys worked toward a negotiated peace in Ukraine, even as Russia launched a new

and deadly strike on Kiev. Trump's much-hyped Alaskan summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir

Putin raised expectations that the administration seems to be having a hard time satisfying.

Meanwhile, Trump continued to push an unrelenting deportation

agenda, flood the nation's capital with militarized law enforcement, and touted it all at an endless

televised cabinet meeting. To try to make sense of Trump's flurry of high-profile power grabs,

firings, and his negotiations with Vladimir Putin.

I'm really excited by our guests today.

We've got a great roundtable of three of the most insightful observers of Trump in the whole country.

Peter Baker, you all know.

He's chief White House correspondent for the New York Times and a political analyst for MSNBC.

He's the author of many books.

Most recently, The Divider, Trump in the White House, 2017 to 2021, which he co-wrote with

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