Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Supreme Court ruling proves Federal Reserve is unique agency, Lisa Cook's lawyer says
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: For more on today's ruling that blocked President Trump from
- 0:02Speaker 1: firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. We are joined now
- 0:06Speaker 1: by Cook's lead council Abbi Lowell. Welcome to the News Hour.
- 0:09Speaker 2: That's good to be here.
- 0:10Speaker 1: So what was your reaction when you read the Supreme
- 0:12Speaker 1: Court's decision today? What's set out to you most well?
- 0:14Speaker 3: I mean, the first reaction was one of joy and
- 0:18Speaker 3: a relief and a little bit of optimism that in
- 0:21Speaker 3: the midst of what is a power grab by this
- 0:23Speaker 3: administration and this president, there are some walls left that
- 0:27Speaker 3: he cannot get over.
- 0:28Speaker 1: The Court decided this on narrow procedural grounds, rather than
- 0:32Speaker 1: ruling directly on whether a president can never remove a
- 0:35Speaker 1: Federal Reserve governor. So why is that a victory rather
- 0:39Speaker 1: than a deferral of the core question?
- 0:41Speaker 3: There are two reasons why it is a victory to
- 0:43Speaker 3: begin with. They just didn't simply say this is a procedural,
- 0:48Speaker 3: go back and do it. It gave some parameters as
- 0:50Speaker 3: to what happens. Remember that this went to the Supreme
- 0:53Speaker 3: Court on an emergency docket basis to stop an injunction
- 0:57Speaker 3: that we.
- 0:57Speaker 2: Got in the district court.
- 1:00Speaker 3: Costs there have been so many of those that the
- 1:02Speaker 3: Supreme Court has been willing to overturn. The fact that
- 1:05Speaker 3: ours stands strong has to be seen by anybody as
- 1:08Speaker 3: a victory.
- 1:09Speaker 2: That's one.
- 1:09Speaker 3: And as I said, the second reason is it's not
- 1:12Speaker 3: just okay, we saw it, you did it wrong, Go
- 1:14Speaker 3: do it better. There are words in this statute that
- 1:17Speaker 3: should make it very much more difficult for the President
- 1:20Speaker 3: to do what he's trying to do and to infuse
- 1:22Speaker 3: politics into the Federal Reserve.
- 1:24Speaker 1: Well, it speaks to the constitutional status of the Federal
- 1:27Speaker 1: Reserve going forward.
- 1:29Speaker 2: It does so.
- 1:29Speaker 3: Again, I realized that today was also the decision about
- 1:32Speaker 3: other independent agencies, and this is a super independent agency.
- 1:36Speaker 3: The Court made very clear something that we've put forward
- 1:38Speaker 3: from the beginning, which is in American history and in
- 1:41Speaker 3: the law, the Federal Reserve Board stands unique. Having said that,
- 1:45Speaker 3: this decision also points out things that others can use.
- 1:48Speaker 3: It does define what du process means about notice and
- 1:51Speaker 3: an opportunity to be heard, and at least in terms
- 1:54Speaker 3: of this next chapter, it points out some parameters of
- 1:57Speaker 3: what cause can be and what it cannot be.
- 2:00Speaker 1: The same court that protected Lisa Cook upheld President Trump's
- 2:04Speaker 1: firing of the FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and expanded his
- 2:08Speaker 1: authority over other independent government agencies. How should we understand
- 2:12Speaker 1: that ruling.
- 2:13Speaker 2: In terms of both You have to understand them together.
- 2:16Speaker 2: I think so. Look, we now can predict.
- 2:19Speaker 3: Unfortunately, many of the votes that take place on this
- 2:21Speaker 3: nine members Supreme Court before a word is uttered or
- 2:25Speaker 3: any opinion is written, and that remained to be the case. Unfortunately,
- 2:29Speaker 3: in my opinion in the FTC Slaughter case, what it
- 2:32Speaker 3: means is that this Court is not about to be
- 2:34Speaker 3: all it can be to put a check in balance
- 2:37Speaker 3: on another branch of government, which I and others believe
- 2:41Speaker 3: is what the founders wanted.
- 2:42Speaker 2: And remember this was not just the Court and the President.
- 2:45Speaker 3: It was Congress that created these independent agencies, and Congress.
- 2:49Speaker 2: Should have a say as well.
- 2:50Speaker 3: So when they established it, we think the president, I
- 2:53Speaker 3: think the president that applied to the Slaughter case.
- 2:57Speaker 2: Was one that should have been prevailed and not overruled.
- 3:00Speaker 3: Said remember again, in the midst of all federal agencies,
- 3:04Speaker 3: the Federal Reserve stands alone. It is an agency, but
- 3:07Speaker 3: it also is the US Bank, and it also has
- 3:10Speaker 3: a history unlike any other agency going back to the
- 3:13Speaker 3: founding of our country, and what today was was the
- 3:16Speaker 3: Court made very clear to this president and to every
- 3:19Speaker 3: president that comes after that this is a unique agency
- 3:22Speaker 3: for which if you're going to try to do something wrong,
- 3:25Speaker 3: you're going to be hiled to a much higher standard.
- 3:28Speaker 1: And yet the president says he's pushing forward. After the ruling,
- 3:31Speaker 1: President Trump wrote on truth Social that the case was
- 3:33Speaker 1: decided on a strictly procedural basis, and he vowed to
- 3:36Speaker 1: take appropriate action immediately to remove doctor Cook from the board.
- 3:41Speaker 1: So what's your response to that and what options, if any,
- 3:43Speaker 1: does the government have left.
- 3:44Speaker 3: My response is to thank President Trump again for whenever
- 3:48Speaker 3: there could be any doubt that his motives are wrong,
- 3:51Speaker 3: that the action he's going to take is improper, or
- 3:54Speaker 3: that he is not going to conform to the basis
- 3:57Speaker 3: of the Supreme Court's decision. It took come minutes like
- 4:00Speaker 3: a child who's been disappointed by losing a game to
- 4:03Speaker 3: go and say something about, oh, I'm still tougher than
- 4:06Speaker 3: the next person. That said, what he has done in
- 4:09Speaker 3: his immediacy is point out that if he thinks that
- 4:12Speaker 3: whatever he's going to give now is process, he has
- 4:15Speaker 3: undermined that by what he said, and if he's going
- 4:18Speaker 3: to try to come up with some other pretext for
- 4:21Speaker 3: what happened to be true cause to remove this governor,
- 4:24Speaker 3: he has undermined that as well.
- 4:26Speaker 1: So the court in leaving doctor Cook in her position
- 4:29Speaker 1: while the underlying litigation continues, what happens next procedurally.
- 4:34Speaker 3: So what happens next is that the court has made
- 4:36Speaker 3: its ruling, the case still exists in the district court
- 4:40Speaker 3: that gave us our injunction. Remember the other side of
- 4:42Speaker 3: the coin of the emergency Docke, it is when the
- 4:44Speaker 3: Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court doesn't stop something
- 4:48Speaker 3: from happening. It continued on. So remember, for all those
- 4:51Speaker 3: who are paying attention, President Trump purported.
- 4:54Speaker 2: To fire doctor Cook.
- 4:56Speaker 3: Now nine months ago, maybe longer, and she has been
- 4:59Speaker 3: of the very active and appropriate member of the board
- 5:02Speaker 3: ever since. So what happens now we go back to
- 5:04Speaker 3: the district court and continue to prove that the President
- 5:08Speaker 3: was wrong and the Federal Reserve Board governor was right,
- 5:10Speaker 3: and the Federal Reserve Board is a unique agency for
- 5:15Speaker 3: which politics should not invade abby lol.
- 5:18Speaker 1: Thanks again for joining us this evening. We appreciate it.
- 5:20Speaker 2: It's my pleasure to.
- 5:21Speaker 4: Be here.
- 5:36Speaker 1: Support journalism you trust. Support PBS News Donate now, or
- 5:41Speaker 1: even better, start a monthly contribution today as