Cook vs. Trump Heads to Court, Inflation and The Fed, August's Bull Run 8/29/25

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Jim Cramer (1:01)

It's Jim Cramer here. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC Squawk on the Street. Don't miss a minute of the action.

Carl Quintanilla (1:09)

Good Friday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with David Faber. Robert Frank's with us at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Cramer has the morning off. Future is a bit soft as we wrap up the trading month for August and the summer. Little pockets of weakness in tech, some warning of additional tariff pressure to come from the likes of Caterpillar. PCE was mostly in line, but year on year core, highest since March of last year. Our roadmap begins with the president asking a judge to deny Fed Governor Cook's firing injunction. A hearing is scheduled in the next hour.

David Faber (1:38)

Plus stocks are sitting at record highs on this, the last trading day of August. We're going to talk about the setup for September. And of course, there's still the great rate debate. Fed Governor Waller is expecting cuts over the next three to six months, starting with September.

Carl Quintanilla (1:52)

Let's begin, though, with Fed Governor Cook suing the president over his attempt to remove her from office. A federal court hearing is slated to begin within the next hour. Raymond Javers is outside the courthouse in Washington with the preview. Hey, Raymond.

Eamon Javers (2:05)

Carl, that's right. We do expect that hearing here at 10 a.m. at the courthouse in Washington. During the course of this morning, though, we've seen dueling filings both from the Federal Reserve and also from the Department of Justice in this case. So remember where we are. Lisa Cook has filed a lawsuit against the president and the Fed saying she does not deserve to be fired and the president doesn't have the authority to do that. What we saw this morning from the Fed was a filing from them, essentially throwing up their shoulders and throwing up their hands and saying, look, we're not going to offer any arguments in this case. We're going to attend the hearing, but we're not going to take a position on it. And we wait to see what the court does. The Fed only asks the court for a speedy decision here. So we'll wait and see whether they get what they're looking for this morning. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice also offering its own filing in it. And in that filing, they say the president has broad discretion under the four cause term of the statute to fire people from the Federal Reserve Board. That's something that's really the centerpiece of the issue here.

They're also arguing that Lisa Cook did not respond publicly or privately to their allegations that she'd committed mortgage fraud and therefore because of her failure to respond publicly, she is not likely to prevail here. What Lisa Cook wants this morning, guys, is an injunction by the court stopping the effort by the president to fire her while her lawsuit plays out. She's asking for that injunction this morning at 10 o'clock. The president, through the Department of Justice, is arguing that no such injunction is needed here. The court should stand aside and allow the president to move ahead with this firing. Also, just within the past couple of moments, we've gotten a statement from Abby Lowell here, who is Lisa Cook's attorney. Now, he is responding to the additional allegation made by the FHFA last night that there is a third property at issue here in terms of Lisa Cook's personal mortgages. What Abby Lowell says, defending Lisa Cook this morning, is this is an obvious smear campaign aimed at discrediting Governor Cook by a political operative who has taken to social media more than 30 times in the last two days and demanded her removal before any review of the facts or evidence. Nothing in these vague unsubstantiated allegations has any relevance to Governor Cook's role at the Federal Reserve, and they in no way justify her removal from the board. So a fiery statement from Lisa Cook's attorney here as we get set for this hearing coming up in less than an hour, guys. Back over to you.