Even as the Supreme Court has granted Donald Trump expanded presidential powers, it has tried to warn him: Don’t mess with the Fed.

But the president has forged ahead with his effort to strong-arm the government’s independent rate-setting agency, the Federal Reserve Board, into cutting interest rates. As he doggedly pursues that fleeting economic sugar high, Trump has endured a series of legal losses that promises to continue until he gets the point and gives up the senseless browbeating. Along the way, he’ll undermine his own ability to install his preferred rate-makers at the agency.

Last year, the Supreme Court granted the president unprecedented unilateral power to fire (for any reason or none at all) the heads of obscure executive-branch agencies like the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board. But the justices cautioned against presidential encroachment on the Fed. The fired agency heads argued that if the Court allowed the president to remove them, then the Fed could be next. “We disagree,” the six-justice conservative majority wrote. “The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.”

The Court usually refuses to offer gratuitous guidance about how it might rule in future cases. But here, the conservative justices left little doubt that, while they would allow the president to run roughshod over most regulatory agencies, they would draw a protective line around the Fed.

Trump didn’t notice or didn’t care. First, he went after Fed governor Lisa Cook. Bill Pulte, an unapologetic sycophant who runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency, sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice alleging that Cook had committed mortgage fraud. Pulte’s record isn’t great; he had previously prodded the DoJ to bring mortgage-fraud charges against New York attorney general Letitia James — a case that has now been rejected by a federal judge and, somehow, two grand juries.

Undaunted, and without waiting to see whether the DoJ would actually seek to indict Cook, Trump fired her by Truth Social post in August 2025. Trump made no effort to disguise his motivation. Just hours after he purported to dispatch Cook, he boasted of the Fed, “We’ll have a majority very shortly. So that’ll be great … We have to get the rates down a little bit.”

But Cook challenged her termination. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in January and seemed distinctly disinclined toward the president. Chief Justice John Roberts noted that some allegations against Cook were “contradicted by other documents in the record,” and fellow conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voiced concern over the lack of process afforded to Cook; apparently firing by social-media post doesn’t do the trick. We await a decision, but it’s clear Cook isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s attention wandered to Fed chair Jerome Powell. Trump appointed Powell as chair in 2017, but they’ve grown apart. Recall the Curb Your Enthusiasm–esque public exchange last year when the two men, both wearing goofy hard hats in front of a bank of television cameras, bickered over the details of cost overruns. (As Trump cited phony figures, Powell shook his head vigorously and replied, “I’m not aware of that.”)

Last week, federal district court judge James Boasberg took the dramatic step of blocking two subpoenas that Trump’s acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. — the former Fox News blunderbuss Jeanine Pirro — had served on the Fed. Pirro’s office is investigating whether Powell gave false congressional testimony about the same cost overruns that Powell and Trump sparred about in the awkward hard-hat exchange. Not coincidentally, the president also has posted on social media over 100 times berating Powell for declining to cut interest rates; Trump has mused aloud that “I want to get him out” and “I may have to force something.” Pirro stood ready to oblige.

After Judge Boasberg rejected her subpoenas, Pirro (evoking Cecily Strong’s wine-spitting Saturday Night Live impression) called a press conference and podium-pounded her way through a bizarre half-hour of unhinged nonsense.

Pirro called Boasberg an “activist judge” — never mind that he was first nominated to the bench by George W. Bush (and later was elevated by Barack Obama) and, in 2017, sided with Trump and rejected an effort to force disclosure of his tax returns. Pirro claimed that the ruling marked “the first time” a judge had quashed a grand jury subpoena and was “untethered to the law.” Judges rarely block grand jury subpoenas, but this was hardly a first. In fact, Boasberg cited a dozen semi-recent examples from across the country — and Trump himself has asked courts to exercise their power to quash subpoenas in prior investigations pointed at him. Pirro claimed that Boasberg had “neutered” her investigation of Powell. But it’s not that the judge cut off the case’s balls (to pick up Pirro’s analogy). He simply noted that it had none to begin with.

Trump usually has a knack for choosing politically useful foils, but his beef with the Fed and Powell is backfiring. Congressional Republicans have cautioned him to back off. Senator Lisa Murkowski criticized the Powell investigation and said, “If the Federal Reserve loses its independence, the stability of our markets and the broader economy will suffer.” Senator Thom Tillis concurred: “It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.” Representative French Hill, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, called the Powell investigation “an unnecessary distraction … that could undermine this and future administrations’ ability to make sound monetary policy decisions.” Senator John Kennedy said bluntly of the Powell criminal inquiry, “We don’t need it.” Remember: These are Republicans. (Democrats are uniformly apoplectic.)

Trump’s efforts to bully Powell aren’t playing any better with the American public. Only 32 percent of respondents in a recent Economist poll approved of the DoJ’s investigation of Powell — and only 57 percent of Republicans.

The thing is, Trump likely could have gotten his way with the Fed if he had just waited a bit. He could have let the DoJ’s investigation of Cook play out; had prosecutors obtained an indictment, he likely would have had ample cause to fire her. Instead, he jumped the gun with the investigation still pending and now has run into a blockade in the courts.

Powell’s tenure as chair ends in May. But the criminal investigation of Powell could delay the confirmation of Trump’s chosen successor, Kevin Warsh. After Pirro vowed to appeal Boasberg’s ruling, Tillis vented about the “weak and frivolous” criminal probe of Powell and vowed to block Warsh’s confirmation until the conclusion of Pirro’s “embarrassment” of an inquiry and appeal.

A federal appeal could easily take six months or more to play out. If Pirro insists on forging ahead, and Tillis holds his ground, then this whole spat will prevent Trump from installing his chosen Fed chair for months beyond the natural end of Powell’s term. Indeed, Powell confirmed this week that he intends to remain in place as chair until the conclusion of the DoJ’s investigation and Senate confirmation of his successor, even if the process extends beyond May.

We’ve grown used to Trump defying Democrats and his other natural political opponents, often purely for the sake of the defiance itself. But his effort to overrun the Fed has rankled his political allies and has gone exceptionally poorly in the courts. The president has chosen the wrong battle.

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