00:00The Supreme Court has ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in her job for now,
00:06hobbling President Donald Trump's bid to assert control over the nation's central bank.
00:13The justices rejected a Trump administration plea to immediately remove Cook from her job
00:20over allegations of mortgage fraud, which she denies.
00:24No president has fired a Federal Reserve Governor in the agency's 113-year history.
00:33Cook can continue in her job as long as her lawsuit challenging her firing continues.
00:41It is currently playing out at the Federal Appeals Court in Washington, D.C.
00:46We have to meet the two mandates we have.
00:51One is the employment mandate and the other one is the priceability mandate.
00:55And certainly we're in a situation where these two are in tension.
00:59So I weighed the evidence with respect to the employment mandate.
01:04We see some softening in the labor market.
01:08We don't see extensive softening in the labor market.
01:11We see progress towards inflation.
01:14Again, the tariff effects are adding about half a percentage point to inflation.
01:22So I see us moving in the right direction.
01:25So given that we are likely moving in the right direction, I thought a 25 basis point cut was appropriate.
01:33But again, December is a live meeting, and I'm attentive to all the indicators that I mentioned and many others.
01:40So it's a balancing act.
01:45And it always is.
01:47So is there anything particularly you're watching for to decide what to do in December?
01:53I'm looking at everything.
01:56There's not one particular thing.
01:57I look at a wide variety of data and look at the labor market, look at prices.
02:05Certainly we want to see if tariff effects are persistent, to see if firms are waiting to raise prices, to
02:13see what they've done with inventories.
02:14So there's a lot to look at.
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