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The president took questions about his push to fire Cook at yesterday's extensive cabinet meeting. He also announced he would seek the death penalty for anyone convicted of murdering someone in the nation's capital, among many other topics. CBS News Senior White House and Political Correspondent Ed O'Keefe I believe sat through that three-plus-- no, you weren't there, but you listened to it. Maybe you watched it live. Ed, good morning. What was the purpose of the meeting? And other than the praise for the president in front of the cameras, what else came out of it? I want to make very clear, CBS was pool yesterday, which means we shot all the footage, got all the audio for everybody else, Errol. You appreciate that, having worked this beat. It was Nancy Cordes and Jennifer Jacobs who endured the 3 hours and 17 minutes, with the [? McCarty ?] brothers and others on the crew. Credit due to them all. The president even complimenting Jay for being able to hold that microphone for three hours over his head as the meeting went on. It was epic. It was primarily designed to show, yet again, that his administration is doing its work and focused on its priorities. It wasn't until the end of that epic meeting that he took some questions, primarily, again, as he said there, on crime here in the District, on the fate of the Federal Reserve, and just got an update otherwise on a host of things that the various secretaries are working on. They like to point out that this is their way of being transparent and doing this work out in the open. The reality is these cabinet secretaries are working pretty frequently with each other all hours of the day on all sorts of policy that is of concern to the president, all of it designed to show that in these first eight months, they've been moving quickly and pretty aggressively to get things done. And during that meeting, one of the topics the president was asked about was his decision to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. What new information did we learn? Well, he cited those allegations of mortgage fraud as the reasons for doing it and concedes that he's not happy with the Federal Reserve for not lowering interest rates fast enough. He's been frustrated that they haven't done it sooner, that they haven't done it at his whim, essentially. Remember, just last week, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, signaled that September might be the month where they've got to do it because of economic data, not because of political pressure. But the concern with the president continuing to mettle has caused great concern for economists and other experts who track this stuff, worried about how the global economy might ultimately react to it Among those, we heard from a guy named Justin Wolfers, who tracks the Fed and its independence, and here's what he had to say. The central bank is independent of the White House, and Trump has found that enormously frustrating. He wants to bring the Fed closer to being under his own supervision and his own power. But that's not what's supposed to happen when it comes to the Federal Reserve. It is an independent entity. There is a Board of Governors appointed by presidents, but they're to be left alone for 14 year terms to serve there and to oversee the nation's economic policy, run the 12 Federal Reserve banks, and not face the threat of removal by a president who may disagree with them. The rules state that there's got to be cause. Currently, the president is citing the allegations of mortgage fraud against her. They've been referred to the Justice Department, but so far, no sign of a prosecution. The Federal Reserve said yesterday they will abide by any court ruling regarding Cook or whether a president can remove someone but that otherwise, they point out, the reason these strict rules have been in place about allowing people to serve without threat of political involvement is designed to ensure proper oversight of the nation's monetary policy. Right. Yeah, we'll dig more into that topic right now. Ed O'Keefe with the latest for us this morning. Ed, thanks so much. So at the moment, markets seem to be having a muted reaction to the president's move to fire one of the central bank's governors, but how long will that last? Business journalist Kristin Myers joins us now to talk about this and much more. Kristin, great to see you. Welcome in-- Thank you. --to our space here. So fact check me. Are markets reacting passively so far to this threat of firing? And if so, why might that be? Yeah, it has been a slightly muted reaction, but that doesn't mean that we haven't seen any reaction. If you look really to bond yields and, honestly, the currency market, you have seen a slight reaction as a lot of investors are considering, what could this mean if the president does have control over the Federal Reserve and, therefore, over interest rates, which means an impact on inflation going forward? But no, we haven't seen stocks take a big downturn that we have seen in a couple of market movements in the past when we've seen big headlines out of the White House. We haven't seen that kind of reaction. Investors right now are looking at some other things, like Nvidia earnings, for example, looking a little bit past this kind of tit for tat with the Federal Reserve. So Fed Chair Powell had hinted that there may be a rate cut soon. It all depends, he says, on the hard data, not on politics. And as we just heard Ed underscore with the expert he spoke with, the Fed is designed to be independent from any administration's political whims, but has that always been true? And that is absolutely right. Everyone really cares mostly about the independence of the Fed, more than they care about which Fed governor is in place at any particular time. And, frankly, all presidents, whether it is Democratic or Republican, have, frankly, come out and pushed the Fed to lower rates. Lower interest rates is great for them. It stimulates the economy. And so a lot of presidents really like it if the Fed lowers rates. But the reality is is that the Fed's movements on rates are not supposed to be at the whims or a political talking point. They are supposed to be keeping this inflation target. It is currently set at 2%. If we see more Fed governors being appointed by the president, we might see that inflation target move upward, and that's what investors definitely care about. And they're also supposed to keep maximum employment. And so they move interest rates really in line with some of those goals. And as a result, if the president can fire Lisa Cook-- and then he would also probably set his sights on Fed Chair Jay Powell. He's come under a lot of scrutiny by the president lately. You're definitely going to see markets take a turn because they don't want that independence to be questioned. We've mentioned the hard data. We just learned yesterday, consumer confidence dipped a little bit. How does that fit into the bigger picture? We've seen consumer confidence kind of waver and wobble just a little bit, especially as we've seen some of these unemployment numbers tick upward. So, yes, consumer confidence has definitely taken a hit. It's not something that everyone should really be freaking out about or really be too, too concerned about. The US economy still remains incredibly strong, and I think the consumer confidence report really still indicates that, that consumers believe that the economy is still strong, but they do have some slight concerns going forward. Well, it's a tightening nationwide. Kristin Myers, great to have you in. Thanks so much for being here. Of course.
