Fed Governor Refuses to Cave—Vows to Sue Trump Over Firing Attempt

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is suing President Donald Trump for attempting to remove her, a move that appears to be part of his crusade against the central bank.

Cook’s attorney Abbe Lowell announced Tuesday morning that Cook intended to launch a legal challenge to the president’s shocking attempt to meddle with the Federal Reserve Bank.

“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” Lowell said in a statement. “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action.”

Trump announced Monday that he was removing Cook “for cause,” citing unproven allegations of mortgage fraud from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte.

Cook dismissed Trump’s attempt to fire her in a statement. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022,” she said.

Pulte’s allegation against Cook suggests a trend of politically motivated mortgage fraud claims, as similar allegations have been made against Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

It’s also worth noting that mortgage fraud would not necessarily constitute “cause” for her removal, as its entirely unrelated to her duties.

Trump has undertaken a months-long campaign to undermine the credibility of the Federal Reserve Bank, as his desire for interest-rate cuts to stave tariff-driven inflation has been met with resistance from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Powell, who has repeatedly issued grave warnings about Trump’s economic policies, has also received threats of removal from the president—something that is not within the executive’s power to do. On Friday, Powell warned that the jobs market had suffered a “much larger” slowdown than the bank had determined just a month earlier.

President Donald Trump is expected to soon place longtime loyalist Dan Scavino in charge of White House personnel matters—passing over far-right provocateur Laura Loomer, who was apparently eyeing the job.

As the previous personnel chief moves to a diplomatic role, Scavino will add “Presidential Personnel Office Director” to a resume already stacked with experiences working for Trump—from golf course manager to deputy chief of staff in his first administration.

The appointment is a snub to Loomer, whom some within the MAGA base were hoping would get the job, according to Politico. Loomer told the publication that it would be an “honor” to be chosen for the role.

The MAGA agitator already holds something of a de facto personnel role at the White House, with several of the administration’s recent staffing decisions traceable to her influence. The MAGA influencer regularly gins up campaigns against insufficiently loyal Trump officials, and even maintains a tip line where one can report Democratic sleeper cells in the administration.

Loomer has repeatedly expressed her interest in working for the president. And while Trump has reportedly considered fulfilling that wish in the past, she claims these attempts have been blocked by jealous staffers.

“I had four jobs given to me in this Trump administration that basically have been taken away from me because some of President Trump’s staff suffer from the incurable disease of professional jealousy,” Loomer recently told ABC.

“I wish I did work for the president,” Loomer said in June, during the deposition in her defamation lawsuit against late-night host Bill Maher, “but he asks me my opinions about [personnel] matters, and I give him my opinion. And so it’s an honor. It really is. But it would be an even bigger honor to be working in an official capacity in the White House.”

But, as conservative website The Free Press reported this month, White House officials are wary of Loomer, with one calling her “more trouble than she’s worth,” and questioning where the Trump loyalty enforcer’s own loyalties lie. “She used to pretty much just amplify the MAGA line,” the unnamed official said, “but now it’s pretty clear that she has her own agenda.”

Despite her unrequited desire to be brought officially aboard by Trump, Loomer says she’s intent on keeping her independent operation churning for his sake. “If I’m going to be denied access by jealous staffers … then I have to operate as my own independent agency,” she told ABC.

A Trump-appointed federal judge just did something truly unexpected.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas T. Cullen dismissed the Department of Justice’s lawsuit challenging a Maryland judge’s two-day waiting period on deportations—and offered a scathing rebuke of the administration’s attacks on the federal judiciary. 

The judge defended a previous ruling that granted immigrant detainees a 48-hour long temporary stay of removal, to provide judges with enough time to actually read their habeas petitions.  

In May, Chief Judge George L. Russell III had originally ruled that the brief stay was necessary to “preserve existing conditions and the potential jurisdiction of this Court over pending matters while the Court determines the scope of its authority to grant the request[ed] relief.”

The DOJ challenged the ruling, alleging that the court had overstepped its authority, violated local court rules, and wrongly granted automatic relief to a special class of litigants. 

But in his 39-page filing Tuesday, Cullen wrote that the government had gone about its grievances all wrong.

“Fair enough, as far as it goes. If these arguments were made in the proper forum, they might well get some traction,” Cullen wrote, adding, “But as events over the past several months have revealed these are not normal times—at least regarding the interplay between the Executive and this coordinate branch of government. It’s no surprise that the Executive chose a different, and more confrontational, path entirely.”

In a footnote, Cullen slammed the Trump administration’s “smear” campaign against the federal judiciary.

“Indeed, over the past several months, principal officers of the Executive (and their spokespersons) have described federal district judges across the country as ‘left-wing,’ liberal,’ ‘activists,’ ‘radical,’ ‘politically minded,’ ‘rogue,’ ‘unhinged,’ ‘outrageous, overzealous, [and] unconstitutional,’ ‘c]rooked,’ and worse,” Cullen wrote. “Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the Executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate.”

Cullen wrote that there was “no alternative but to dismiss” the government’s lawsuit. 

“To hold otherwise would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law,” the judge wrote. “All of this isn’t to say that the Executive is without any recourse; far from it. If the Executive truly believes that Defendants’ standing orders violate the law, it should avail itself of the tried-and-true recourse available to all federal litigants: It should appeal.”

There’s some good news in Utah: On Monday, Judge Dianna Gibson blocked the state’s Republican-controlled legislature from enacting their heavily gerrymandered congressional map, declaring it unconstitutional. Instead the state will defer to the independent redistricting reform that citizens voted for back in 2018, known as “Proposition 4.” 

“Proposition 4 is the law in Utah on redistricting. H.B. 2004, the 2021 Congressional Map, which was not enacted under S.B. 200 and not Proposition 4, cannot lawfully govern future elections in Utah,” Gibson wrote. “The Legislature intentionally stripped away all of Proposition 4’s core redistricting standards and procedures that were mandatory and binding on it.... To permit the 2021 Congressional Plan to remain in place would reward the very constitutional violation this Court has already identified and would nullify the people’s 2018 redistricting reform.” 

Republican attempts to supersede Proposition 4 began in 2021, when they ignored ballot measures and split up Salt Lake County, the district that contains most of the state’s Democratic voters. Now that their move has been struck down, lawmakers have just under a month to bring the map up to Proposition 4 standards.   

This comes as Texas and California are locked in a heated gerrymandering battle, as the former carries out a Trump-backed effort to add multiple Republican seats to the House, while the latter starts its own retaliatory redistricting effort under Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. The results in Utah, in addition to the language in Gibson’s ruling, serve as a positive sign for those who want to bring legal challenges on gerrymandering in the near future. 

Nobody seems to like Cracker Barrel’s brand overhaul—including the president.

Donald Trump weighed in on the culture war fiasco Tuesday, urging the Tennessee-born “old country store” to return to its design roots.

“Cracker Barrel should go back to the old logo, admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate Poll), and manage the company better than ever before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “They got a Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right. Very tricky to do, but a great opportunity. Have a major News Conference today. Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again.”

The U.S. leader then took the opportunity to toot his own horn, absurdly claiming that he had resurrected America from a supposedly decrepit state last year.

“Remember, in just a short period of time I made the United States of America the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World,” Trump noted. “One year ago, it was ‘DEAD.’ Good luck!”

The restaurant chain’s redesign stripped down its logo, removing the imagery of the old man (known as “Uncle Herschel”) and his barrel, replacing it with simple, minimalist text. The stores are expected to undergo a similar redecoration, eschewing the company’s old-timey, gold and wood-toned brand for grayer, cleaner decor that would have been on trend if it was unveiled some 15 years ago.

It took the brains of three PR firms—Prophet, Viral Nation and Blue Engine—to cook up Cracker Barrel’s $700 million transformation.

While no one seems particularly jazzed about the overhaul—the company’s stock plummeted by almost $100 million in the wake of the announcement—MAGA pundits have taken particular issue with Cracker Barrel’s rebrand.

Podcaster Matt Walsh called the effort “generic.” Fox & Friends called it “woke.” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was particularly chuffed—in separate posts, Kirk claimed that Cracker Barrel was “targeted” to promote “LGBTQ propaganda,” and also used the fiasco as an opportunity to fat shame, likening the new logo to an overweight woman while comparing the old one to Sydney Sweeney in her “great genes” American Eagle ad campaign.

The division wasn’t entirely partisan, however. The official X account for the Democratic party chimed in on the rebrand last week, writing: “We think the Cracker Barrel rebrand sucks too.”

The company practically apologized for its new look Monday, releasing a statement recognizing the design misstep while emphasizing that the brand had not forgotten about Uncle Herschel.

“If the last few days have shown us anything, it’s how deeply people care about Cracker Barrel,” the company posted on its website Monday. “You’ve also shown us that we could’ve done a better job sharing who we are and who we’ll always be.”