Instant Reaction: Supreme Court Blocks Trump from Firing Fed's Lisa Cook

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This is a breaking news update from Bloomberg. Instant reaction and analysis from our 3,000 journalists and analysts around the world.

**Scarlet Fu** (0:19)
Paul, we have some breaking news. The Supreme Court, of course, publishing its opinions today. It has expanded the president's power to fire top officials. It refuses to let the president immediately oust Lisa Cook, however, and Lisa Cook is now currently allowed to stay in the job for now.

**Paul Sweeney** (0:37)
All right. Let's bring in June Grasso, Bloomberg's legal analyst here. She joins us here in studio. Let's start with the Lisa Cook decision here, June.
Can you summarize what's going on here?

**June Grasso** (0:48)
So Lisa Cook, as you know, was a federal reserve governor and Donald Trump tried to fire her on the basis of allegations of mortgage fraud. So there was no any kind of procedure at all before he said that. So during the oral arguments, it was pretty clear that the Supreme Court justices were going to vote with Lisa Cook and not allow Trump to do that because of the status of the Federal Reserve. And during the oral arguments, there were a lot of questions by the Conservatives as well about why was there no process here? She had absolutely no process. What would it take for you to have some kind of hearing at least before this happened? So there was concern on their part. And Justice Brett Kavanaugh had said prior to that that the Fed is different. So that was expected. Now as far as the slaughter case where she's on the FTC, they say that that's different and because it's not the Fed. But what this does is this really expands presidential power. It means that the president has the authority to fire people at the top of what, like 20 agencies or so.
And what they've done here is they've done away with Humphrey's executor, which was a decision which is standing for about 70, 80 years, I think, about the ability of presidents to fire people. Which was that there was no ability for them to fire people at the head of agencies. And they've been cutting back on that bit by bit by bit. And now they appear to have gotten rid of it since they, I haven't read the opinion yet, obviously, since they're allowing the slaughter to be fired. And one more thing, too, if you notice this week what's happening, and last week, what's been happening is that they're releasing opinions at the same time that have to do with a similar issue.
And what I think is happening, too, is the, it used to be that all the big decisions were loaded to the very end, the last day, but now we're seeing big decisions this week and last week, and I think the chief is trying to mix it up so we don't have a day on the last day of the opinion. And there were five, six, you know, there were five, six to three decisions, and they were all in these big cases. So I think that that's what's happening here.

**Scarlet Fu** (3:06)
So let me just make sure I understand. The Supreme Court ruled that Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve Governor, can stay in her job for now.

**Paul Sweeney** (3:14)
What's for now mean?

**Scarlet Fu** (3:16)
That's a good question, but it's while litigation continues, right?

**June Grasso** (3:18)
Right, right. So, yeah, because they've had no litigation at all. He just said, you know, hello, I want to say your friend is defied.

**Scarlet Fu** (3:26)
In other words.

**June Grasso** (3:27)
Well, I assume that we have to see what the president does now. Are they going to go forward with this? Are they going to bother to go forward with this and have it litigated? Probably. And she's got one of the best Supreme Court litigators around. The former former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who is just really his record at the Supreme Court is phenomenal. And I think he is the one who has argued the most cases at the court. And you can see the deference the justices pay to him when when he's arguing. So, I mean, that will go on. Her litigation will go on to, you know, to stop this. But, you know, by the time, who knows, by the time it gets done, Trump could be out of office. I mean, the way these things drag on.

**Scarlet Fu** (4:07)
So, the president's efforts to push her out of the Central Bank's board, that is not going forward. That failed. But, and you were saying that his ability to oust other government agency leaders. Yeah, this has been expanded.