Supreme Court Finally Puts Its Foot Down on Trump’s Fascist Antics
The Supreme Court has saved Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s job—for now.

The Supreme Court will allow Lisa Cook to remain on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors despite President Donald Trump’s attempt to oust her.
In a brief one-page order Wednesday, the court said Cook could keep her position pending oral arguments early next year, denying Trump’s application to stay an appeals court decision keeping Cook in place.
“The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is deferred pending oral argument in January 2026,” the order stated.
Trump attempted to fire Cook in August over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte—who’s made similar accusations against a number of the president’s enemies. But the move was initially blocked by a federal judge, who said the claim had nothing to do with Cook’s actual job.
Last month, an appeals court said that Cook was likely to succeed in her statutory claim that she’d been fired without “cause,” as well as her procedural claim that she did not receive her due process prior to her removal. But federal attorney John Sauer argued that she was not entitled to due process, and that Trump has sweeping discretion to fire whomever he wanted as long as he claimed it was related to their job.
This latest Supreme Court decision is a notably different outcome from similar challenges to Trump’s firings. Last month, Justice Elena Kagan slammed the Supreme Court’s conservative majority for approving Trump’s emergency request to remove Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. The conservative justices also had previously allowed Trump to oust Gwynne Wilcox at the National Labor Relations Board and Cathy Harris at the Merit Systems Protection Board—whose terms weren’t due to expire until 2029—as well as three Democratic appointees on the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
In December, the Supreme Court is expected to reexamine the 1935 case Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, in which the court rejected Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s attempt to fire a conservative commissioner appointed by President Herbert Hoover overseeing his New Deal policies. Depending on how the court rules, Trump could be granted sweeping discretion to fire members of independent agencies, like Cook, and Justice Clarence Thomas has already hinted that past precedents may be turned on their heads.
Last week, an amicus brief was filed arguing that removing Cook would “threaten [the] independence and erode public confidence in the Fed,” stressing the historical importance of the agency’s freedom from political considerations. The brief was signed by every living former Federal Reserve chair, and several other economic policy experts that spanned political boundaries.
This story has been updated.