Preview: Fed Up - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts

Podcast Summary: Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts

Episode: Preview: Fed Up
Date: January 21, 2026
Host: Dahlia Lithwick
Guest: Mark Joseph Stern
Topic: Supreme Court Arguments on Trump’s Attempted Removal of Fed Governor Lisa Cook

Episode Overview

This special bonus episode dives into the extraordinary Supreme Court oral arguments concerning President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The conversation explores the legal chaos Trump has instigated by relying on scant evidence and social media declarations, plunging the Court—and the country—into uncharted territory on presidential removal powers.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How Did This Case End Up at the Supreme Court?

Supreme Court Reluctance: The Court finds itself in a situation it evidently wanted to avoid.
Trump’s Pattern: Following his return to office, Trump began firing officials from independent agencies (like the FTC and NLRB), exceeding prior presidential authority.
Targeting the Fed: Trump's removal attempt intensified with Lisa Cook, a Biden appointee, alleging (via Truth Social) that she committed mortgage fraud.
Legal Context: The Federal Reserve Act only allows for-cause removal, with due process rights for the removed party. Cook argued she never had a chance to address the allegations—no notice, no hearing.
Judicial Response: The lower courts sided with Cook, and the Supreme Court temporarily blocked her removal while the case was expedited to oral argument.

Quote - on the Supreme Court's dilemma (02:10):

"Now they've backed themselves into a corner where they have to somehow write an opinion explaining why Lisa Cook and the Federal Reserve are so very special and must be protected from Trump while almost all of the rest of the executive branch can be purged willy nilly..."
—Mark Joseph Stern

2. Oral Arguments—Procedural Chaos & Legal Technicalities

Excessive Legal Jargon: The lack of concrete facts led to dense, technical debate.
SG Sauer’s Defense: Solicitor General John Sauer claimed “for cause” means whatever the president says, and that the president's removal decisions are unreviewable.
Constitutional Absurdity: The oral arguments revealed the apparent lack of any substantive process or evidence behind Cook’s removal.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Probing: She pressed hard on the lack of due process, exposing the hollow legal rationale.
- Memorable Exchange (05:26–06:07):
  
  "Traditionally, when an allegation is made about someone's misconduct... there's an opportunity for that person to present evidence, for the other side to present evidence. ... So what I'm trying to understand is what is the evidence that has been presented and considered with respect to Ms. Cook's alleged misconduct?... Was Ms. Cook given the opportunity in some sort of formal proceeding to contest that evidence or explain it?"
  —Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

3. The ‘Truth Social Removal’ and Due Process Farce

Social Media as Official Channel: The supposed evidence for Cook’s removal was a Truth Social post and a technical paperwork error.
Lack of Hearing or Process: Cook never had a formal chance to defend herself—only a vague, public opportunity to rebut online.
Absurd Equivalence: The Solicitor General’s argument implied posting on social media was equivalent to a lawful hearing.

Quotes on the Farcical Process:

(06:30)

"That question shows what a charade this whole thing is.... The allegations against her were laid out, really, in a Truth Social post."
—Mark Joseph Stern
(07:39)

"I loved Justice Jackson saying, like, was she supposed to just post maybe on Truth Social, Right. Maybe on X, maybe, you know, on BL Guy, she could post her retort and that would be the notice and a hearing that she was due under the statute."
—Mark Joseph Stern

4. Supreme Court Skepticism

None of the justices seemed convinced by the government’s argument that Cook’s due process rights were respected.
The hosts note the case is emblematic of legal standards being upended:

"The idea that like screw the record, screw the facts. Like the place this is properly litigated is on Truth Social and she somehow like waived her opportunity to have a hearing when she didn't post on the Internet and it was just like up is down."
—Dahlia Lithwick (08:26)

Timestamps for Key Segments

Background and Trump’s removal spree: 01:55 – 04:35
Legal technicalities and ‘for cause’ debate: 04:35 – 05:26
Justice Jackson presses on due process: 05:26 – 06:07
Discussion on lack of hearing and social media farce: 06:08 – 07:39
Hosts reflect on Supreme Court skepticism: 07:40 – 08:26

Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

Justice Jackson’s grilling of SG Sauer
(05:26–06:07)

"Was Ms. Cook given the opportunity in some sort of formal proceeding to contest that evidence or explain it?"
Stern on spectacle of the arguments
(06:30)

"That question shows what a charade this whole thing is..."
Lithwick on the absurdity of the process
(08:26)

"The idea that... the place this is properly litigated is on Truth Social..."

Conclusion

This episode offers a sharp, at times incredulous, legal analysis of a chaotic Supreme Court case testing the limits of presidential removal powers. The hosts dissect the utter lack of process in Trump’s attempt to remove Lisa Cook, and the justices’ apparent discomfort with being asked to legitimize removal-by-Tweet. At its core, the conversation underscores the critical importance of factual records, due process, and the institutional independence of the Federal Reserve—especially when basic legal procedures are discarded for social media spectacle.

Transcript

A (0:03)

Hi, and welcome to a special bonus episode of Amicus Slate's podcast about the courts and the law. I'm Dahlia Lithwick.

B (0:11)

And I'm Mark Joseph Stern.

A (0:13)

And we are popping up with this extra midweek episode because while President Donald Trump was wrapping up his rambling and largely incoherent impersonation of Tony Soprano In Davos, the nine justices of the U.S. supreme Court were settling into hear two hours of oral arguments over President Trump's efforts to remove Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, by way of a truth social post last August, alleging that she had committed mortgage fraud. Again, mortgage fraud. The D.C. circuit had actually stayed that effort at removal. The case hurtled up to the high court on the shadow docket without any real record, without any real facts, without much guidance other than the president's feelings. And so Solicitor General John Sauer used Wednesday morning's arguments to claim that presidential removal decisions, even at the Fed, are virtually unreviewable, while former Solicitor General Paul Clement, representing Lisa Cook, argued that this had all happened illegally and sloppily and at a minimum, far too fast, insisting that this was just not a good way to do law. So Mark and I have convened this special session of the Amicus plus Smokeless Cigar Bar in order to try to discern what precisely a high court is to do without facts, law, articulable harms to the president in a case where they might not even be able to craft a remedy and might have no authority to intervene at all. It is High Court Calvin Ball, but this time it's played with neither a ball nor, it seems, a Calvin. So, hi there, Mark.

B (1:54)

Hi again, Dalia.

A (1:55)

And I wonder if you could just start by reminding us how we got here and how it is that Donald Trump pushed this, the Supreme Court, into a place where I think it was demonstrably clear from arguments they really did not want to be.

B (2:10)

So when Donald Trump went back to the White House last January, he very quickly started firing a bunch of people who he could not legally fire, people on the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board. And he got favorable decisions from the Supreme Court allowing him to fire those people, at least while their cases were pending, and basically expanding presidential power of removal beyond where it had ever been before. And I think that emboldened him to go after the kind of golden calf, the Federal Reserve, and then try to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, specifically Lisa Cook, who is a Joe Biden appointee and a black woman and a liberal. And all of the things that Trump hates. And so having successfully purged all of these other Biden holdovers from all these other agencies, he thought he could get Cook as well. He declared on Truth Social that Cook had committed mortgage fraud. Highly dubious allegations, as we'll discuss. It seems that one of his underlings had just sort of set about finding something incriminating about Cook that could be used to justify removing her from the board. And so Trump just decreed in August, Lisa Cook is gone. But she didn't leave. She refused to leave. She instead went to court because the statute creating the Federal Reserve specifically says that the President can only fire members of the Board of Governors for cause. And she argued a bunch of things, but namely that that cause did not exist here. There was no good cause to remove her, and that she deserves notice and a hearing if she is going to be removed so that she can contest the allegations against her. As you said, Dahlia, the lower courts ruled in Cook's favor. This case rocketed it up to the Supreme Court. A few months ago, the Supreme Court set the case for oral arguments, but did not allow Trump to fire Cook in the meantime, which was kind of a clue they would see this case differently from the others where they did let Trump fire these officials. And, yeah, now they've backed themselves into a corner where they have to somehow write an opinion explaining why Lisa Cook and the Federal Reserve are so very special and must be protected from Trump while almost all of the rest of the executive branch can be purged willy nilly because Trump hates Democrats and doesn't think they have any legitimate claim to govern.