An update now on President Trump's push to fire a Federal Reserve governor who votes on interest rate policy.

I'm David Brancaccio. Fed Governor Lisa Cook's lawyer says she will sue to challenge the president's move to oust her.

Let's turn to Peter Conte Brown. He teaches financial regulation, legal studies, and business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Professor, welcome.

Glad to be here. There is a published report that the White House is getting ready to appoint Lisa Cook's replacement now. Do you think if it comes to that, two people jostling for the same office, essentially, that this could affect markets in the real economy?

Unquestionably. Markets hate uncertainty. And that's all the truer when we're talking about

uncertainty of Fed policy to individuals creating kind of a two popes situation with the Federal Reserve

is the very definition of

uncertainty. So far the public has not seen evidence Fed Governor Cook did anything wrong with

an old mortgage. To fire her, do you think the Trump administration needs to just show that

evidence or would have to go further and actually prove a case?

You know, we have so little to go on in terms of what constitutes a fireable offense.

The Supreme Court very recently just said that the president can fire just about anybody in the federal government, but in that same order, the Supreme Court said the Federal Reserve is

different. It just didn't explain how. My strong sense, based on case

law and other related contexts, is that acts taken by Lisa Cook private citizen before her

public service would be off limits, that the fireball offense has to be related to conduct

that occurred during her office. But it also means that litigation will follow.

Yeah, and it isn't just an informal test of the Trump administration's authority. It could be

the administration argues in court that restrictions on a president's ability to fire a Fed official,

that law violates the Constitution. It could make that very argument. Now,

that would be a different argument than they just made just months ago. The Trump administration

insisted that the Constitution protects the president's ability to fire anyone. And then the

Trump administration insisted, but by the way, the Constitution protects the Federal Reserve

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