What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to extort a Federal Reserve governor out of her seat.

Lisa Cook is a governor of the Federal Reserve with a term that runs through 2038. Today, Trump called on her to resign after the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency accused her of filing an inaccurate mortgage application in 2021, and made a criminal referral to Pam Bondi (the Attorney General of the United States and previously Trump's personal defense lawyer).  

The criminal referral was posted to the social media page of Bill Pulte, Trump's appointed head of the FHFA. Pulte is not a household name for most Americans—unless they've lived in the houses his company built, in which case they may know him as the defendant in a class action suit for shoddy construction practices or his building company's 1.4-star Yelp reviews. Like Trump, he inherited his real estate fortune. Until Trump appointed him, was better known as a Twitter personality who dangled "charitable" gifts for randomly selected followers in exchange for retweeting ads for his business. 

Pulte is refusing to answer direct questions from reporters about whether he was directed by Trump to target his political enemies. 

What Cook is accused of—listing two consecutive properties as a primary home on mortgage documents—is not a crime or even a breach of policy, unless it was part of a larger fraudulent scheme. Trump himself presents a contrast: he lied to banks and the government about the value of his properties in order to obtain cheaper mortgages while also paying too little in taxes. Trump and his company had to pay a $364 million fine after New York Attorney General Letitia James proved that fraud in civil court.

James is one of another of Trump's political enemies, along with California Sen. Adam Schiff, whose mortgages have suddenly come in for scrutiny. He's also tried to force the resignation of the Chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, by threatening him with fraud charges over money spent on renovations to the Fed complex that Trump himself approved.

One of the few topics Trump has been personally engaged with since returning to office has been the subject of interest rates. Trump wants the baseline Federal Reserve rate cut by 3%, a massive shock to the economic system that is normally nudged along by quarter- and half-point increments. Not only would such a drastic cut create short-term chaos in financial markets, it would leave the United States without any tools to respond to the next recession. Cutting rates while the economy is strong is like taking a toxic medicine before you're sick: it makes you more susceptible to the disease you were trying to avoid in the first place, while taking away the only tool that will fight it.

But an extremely wealthy investor who knows that this will happen can get rich off of it. Coincidentally, an NBC News report released today makes clear just how much Trump will personally benefit if he can stack the "independent" central bank with loyalists. Since taking office, Trump has bought more than $103,000,000 in corporate bonds, mostly in banks he is in charge of regulating. When interest rates fall, the price of bonds goes up. If interest rates plummeted suddenly, Trump would stand to make tens of millions of dollars instantly, at the cost of any economic protection against the next recession. 

Why does this matter?

• This is what weaponization of government looks like. 

• Abuse of power is a criminal act.

• Using your political powers to force public servants to do things that will enrich you is what every tinpot dictator does.  

• The health of the American economy is VASTLY more important than Donald Trump making money personally.