President Donald Trump was confronted by reporters on Tuesday's Cabinet meeting over whether his move to oust Federal Reserve official Lisa Cook was a political abuse of power — and was not happy about it.
Trump announced the attempted firing Monday evening, using as justification an unproven allegation of mortgage fraud leveled by Bill Pulte, his director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Pulte has made similar accusations against several of Trump's political opponents, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Cook has denied any misconduct and refuses to step down from her position. Trump's announcement was greeted by outrage from Democratic leaders, and experts are concerned that Trump is making a move to intimidate the Fed into submitting to his dictates on interest rates, which could destabilize the dollar and undermine international confidence in the U.S. monetary system.
"Is your administration weaponizing government by digging into mortgage records?" a reporter asked Trump.
"No, they're public," said Trump. "You can go check out the records yourself. You should be doing that job, actually. You wouldn't do that because that's not the kind of reporter you are."
"If you did your job, we wouldn’t have problems like Lisa Cook," he added.