President Donald Trump ramped up pressure on the US central bank Wednesday, calling for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook to step down \u2014 after his recent criticism of Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCook must resign, now!!!\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, while sharing a Bloomberg news report on how the Federal Housing Finance Agency\u2019s director has called for greater scrutiny of Cook over a pair of mortgages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FHFA director Bill Pulte \u2014 a staunch ally of Trump \u2014 had reportedly written a letter to the US attorney general calling for an investigation of Cook while suggesting that she might have committed a criminal offense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration has pursued allegations of mortgage fraud against high-profile Democrats who are seen as political adversaries of the president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was not immediately clear if such a probe will take place targeting Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the central bank\u2019s board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president is also limited in his ability to remove officials from the central bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Supreme Court order recently suggested that Fed officials cannot be taken out of their jobs over policy disagreements, meaning they have to be removed for \u201ccause,\u201d which could be interpreted to mean wrongdoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2013 \u2018A disaster\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US leader\u2019s targeting of Cook, who sits on the Fed\u2019s rate-setting committee, comes after his repeated broadsides against Powell while the central bank kept the benchmark lending rate unchanged this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday night, Trump again called for a \u201cmajor rate cut,\u201d saying there was \u201cno inflation\u201d and claiming that the Fed\u2019s policymaking was harming the housing industry due to elevated mortgage rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He called Powell \u201ca disaster\u201d in a social media post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the US consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, was steady at 2.7 percent in July, it remains higher than it was a few months earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fed officials have been trying to ensure inflation is kept in check \u2014 despite the effects of Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs \u2014 while balancing risks to the labor market as they mull the right time for further rate cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cook took office as a Fed governor in May 2022 and was reappointed to the board in September 2023. She was sworn in later that same month for a term ending in 2038.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She has previously served on the Council of Economic Advisers under former president Barack Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this year, Trump suggested that what he called an overly costly renovation of the Fed\u2019s headquarters could be a reason to oust Powell, before backing off the threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Powell\u2019s term as Fed chair ends in May 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump ramped up pressure on the US central bank Wednesday, calling for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook to step down \u2014 after his recent criticism of Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates sooner. \u201cCook must resign, now!!!\u201d Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, while sharing a Bloomberg news report […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[2475,3641,193,1219],"class_list":["post-8695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-central-bank","tag-fed","tag-news","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8697,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8695\/revisions\/8697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miaminewsnetwork.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}