On Aug. 25, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that he was removing Lisa Cook from her position as a governor on the Federal Reserve Board, the agency that sets U.S. monetary policy and regulates the nation’s banking system.
In a letter released by the White House, the president claimed that Cook had been dismissed “for cause” as allowed by federal law. He cited allegations that Cook had claimed two different properties as her primary residence in mortgage application paperwork.
“At a minimum, the conduct at issue exhibits the sort of gross negligence in financial transactions that calls into question your competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator,” Trump wrote in his letter to Cook.
The move marked a dramatic escalation in the president’s efforts to reshape the Federal Reserve, which he has regularly criticized as being too slow to reduce interest rates amid lingering concerns about the risk of inflation.
