The President is also limited in his ability to remove officials from the central bank.
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 “cause”, which could be interpreted to mean wrongdoing.
‘A disaster’
The US leader’s targeting of Cook, who sits on the Fed’s rate-setting committee, comes after his repeated broadsides against Powell while the central bank kept the benchmark lending rate unchanged this year.
Earlier this week, Trump again called for a “major rate cut”, saying there was “no inflation” and claiming that the Fed’s policymaking was harming the housing industry because of elevated mortgage rates.
He called Powell “a disaster” in a social media post.
Although the US consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, was steady at 2.7% in July, it remains higher than it was a few months earlier.
Fed officials have been trying to ensure inflation is kept in check – despite the effects of Trump’s sweeping tariffs – while balancing risks to the labour market as they mull the right time for further rate cuts.
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.
She has previously served on the Council of Economic Advisers under former President Barack Obama.
Earlier this year, Trump suggested that what he called an overly costly renovation of the Fed’s headquarters could be a reason to oust Powell, before backing off the threat.
Powell’s term as Fed chair ends in May 2026.
-Agence France-Presse
