Trump's unprecedented attack on the Fed

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Last night, President Donald Trump posted a letter firing Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook. The reason? She was accused of listing two properties as her primary residences, which potentially gave her more favorable lending terms. This marks another escalation in the president’s battle for control of America’s central bank.

We’re publishing our conversation early about whether this is legal, what the Fed might do, and how the Fed’s independence is more fragile than we may think.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:02.2	This is the indicator from planet money.
0:13.7	I'm Darym Woods.
0:14.7	And I'm Whalen Wong.
0:16.0	On Monday night, President Trump ratcheted up the pressure on the Federal Reserve.
0:21.9	Trump posted a letter on truth social firing a governor of the Fed, Lisa Cook. He accused Lisa Cook of potential mortgage fraud.
0:29.3	Joe Biden appointed Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 2022. It's a 14-year term,
0:36.4	and Lisa Cook is the first black woman to serve there.
0:39.7	The Board of Governors' big role is voting on interest rates, which they do alongside some
0:44.5	regional Fed presidents. So they are the ones who decide whether borrowing money will be
0:50.2	easier or harder. So this letter puts the country into extraordinary territory. It politicizes
0:57.1	the Fed, which is something we don't really have a precedent for in living memory. The Fed has
1:01.8	historically been insulated from politics because it has this all-important job of keeping
1:07.2	inflation stable and unemployment low. It's supposed to steer the economy based on data.
1:12.8	Basically, Trump wants the economy revved up right now, a lot. And it doesn't consider that it'll
1:18.7	cause problems like inflation down the road. The vast majority of economists don't share that
1:23.9	view that interest rates should dramatically drop. And so Trump needs political loyalists to do that.
1:31.1	This attempt to fire Lisa Cook raised so many questions for us.
1:34.6	We were literally texting each other last night.
1:36.8	Yeah.
1:37.1	So, Waylon, you and I caught up on all the analysis, the frenzied takes coming out of Washington.
1:43.7	And we just sat down and had a chat.
	...

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