The Supreme Court Expands Presidential Power. Again.

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**Michael Barbaro** (0:37)
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. In a major ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court delivered one of the biggest changes in decades to how the federal government works. And then the court turned around and announced an exception to its own ruling. Today, my colleague Ann Marimow explains what the court was up to.
It's Tuesday, June 30th. Ann, thank you for coming on, on a busy Supreme Court day for you. Appreciate it.

**Ann E. Marimow** (1:35)
Thanks for having me.

**Michael Barbaro** (1:37)
So, and Monday was a day of big, and I think if we're being honest, somewhat contradictory rulings, in theory, by the Supreme Court about the scope of presidential power. So let's start with what just happened and what it means.

**Ann E. Marimow** (1:54)
So there are two big decisions on Monday.
The first was a major expansion of presidential power. It makes it far easier for presidents to fire the heads of independent agencies, like the Federal Trade Commission. It says the president can fire regulators for no reason or any reason at all, and these have been traditionally independent agencies. So the court's decision really upends the structure of the federal government, as it's been for over 100 years.

**Michael Barbaro** (2:21)
Right. It's not every day that you hear a colleague say that 100 years of federal government precedent and practice has been upended, but that's what you just said.

**Ann E. Marimow** (2:29)
That's right. At the heart of this case was a 90-year-old precedent from 1935 that said Congress could protect these independent regulators from being fired on a whim by the president, and now the court said today that they can.

**Michael Barbaro** (2:43)
Right. Basically, they overruled a major precedent. That's the first case.

**Ann E. Marimow** (2:48)
That's right. Then the second case, as you mentioned, seems somewhat contradictory. In this case, the court carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve, an influential central bank. The court said this is a unique institution, that independence is really critical to overseeing monetary policy. As you'll recall, this is the case where President Trump tried to fire Lisa Cook, one of the governors of the Federal Reserve Board. Here the court said, unlike all these other agencies, that the president can't just remove her on a whim, that there has to be cause.
In this case, the court's decision here was a little bit technical and procedural, but it upholds the principle that the Federal Reserve is unique and that its independence is really critical in our system of government.

**Michael Barbaro** (3:34)
Got it. So in summary, the court on Monday vastly expands the president's power by saying he can pretty much fire whoever he wants from these previously, quote unquote, independent federal agencies on a whim without any cause, which would seem to be a major, major change to how the federal government works. And yet, it said all of that is true except for the central bank, which is a tricky bit of legal logic that we're going to talk about. But let's start with the first case, the biggest of the two that gives the president this power to fire so many leaders of federal agencies that previously he couldn't and overturns these decades and decades of precedent.

**Ann E. Marimow** (4:17)
So the first case is about Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic nominee of the Federal Trade Commission, which by design has to have both Democratic and Republican nominees. She was actually appointed by President Trump in his first term, and then he comes back to office again in his second term, and gets rid of lots of Democratic nominees of independent agencies, including Rebecca Slaughter, and then she goes to court and sues.

**Michael Barbaro** (4:41)
Right. Slaughter goes to the court and says, the reason President Trump is firing me despite appointing me, is that he doesn't like my politics now, and that's not legally sufficient, given all these legal protections that surround the kind of commission I'm on. And just remind us why these particular agencies have these specific job protections.