President Donald Trump said on Friday morning he would fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook if she doesn’t resign over allegations of mortgage fraud.
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“I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign,” Trump told reporters on Friday morning. “What she did was bad.”
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It’s a fresh sign that Trump is broadening his offensive against the Fed to include central bank officials who decide the direction of interest rates. Cook has a vote on the 12-member Federal Open Markets Committee that meets periodically to to adjust the cost of borrowing based on the state of the economy.
Trump’s threat comes just two days after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte disclosed mortgage documents his agency obtained about Cook, alleging she had sought favorable loans with misleading information on her applications. It formed the basis of a criminal referral that the FHFA sent to the Justice Department, which has reportedly taken steps to open an investigation into Cook. Trump quickly demanded her resignation over social media.
Over the course of a month in 2021, Cook obtained primary residence mortgages on two properties in Michigan and Georgia, declaring both to be her main residence, per the documents released by Pulte. That was before then-President Biden appointed her to the Fed’s Board of Governors and her ensuing Senate confirmation in May 2022. Cook has voted alongside Powell to hold interest rates steady so far this year.
Cook has made it clear she doesn’t intend to step aside. “I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” she said in a statement released Wednesday, adding she will “take any questions about my financial history seriously” and “answer any legitimate questions.”
Trump has expressed enormous fury at Fed Chair Jerome Powell in particular for the central bank pausing interest rate cuts this year. Observers say he has authority to oust members from the Fed’s Board of Governors, a subset of the FOMC.
“The president can fire members of the Fed Board for cause,” said Gary Richardson, a past historian of the Federal Reserve who’s now a professor at the University of California, Irvine. “Members of the FOMC have been forced to resign for less.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.