MSNBC host Michael Steele and economist Paul Krugman on MSNBC on August 28, 2025

On Thursday, Lisa Cook – a member of the Federal Reserve board of governors — officially sued President Donald Trump over his attempt to remove her from her job. And former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is wondering why the leader of the nation's central bank has so far kept quiet.

Before interviewing Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman on his MSNBC show "The Weeknight," Steele tore into Fed chairman Jerome Powell for not defending his fellow Fed member. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 stipulates that a president can only remove a Fed governor "for cause," and Steele asserted that Trump's stated cause of Cook allegedly committing mortgage fraud didn't hold water.

"We have been making this point since this story broke that the Fed chair, in my estimation, needs to step up —needs to man up — and stand with one of his governors who's under attack because he knows damn well what Donald Trump is up to," Steele said. "How do we know? How does he know? Because he's gone after Trump!"

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Steele also lauded Krugman for stating on his Substack that the onus is on Powell to make Trump prove that Cook has committed an offense grave enough to be stripped of her Senate-confirmed role. And the MSNBC host asked Krugman to shed light on why Powell was showing such "reticence" and leaning on "bureaucratic BS speak" rather than plainly opposing Trump's actions.

"I would say that p=Powell is really falling down on the job here," Krugman said. "He needs to stand up and say, look, if you have a good, solid reason to for this, tell us ... If they had real evidence of malfeasance on Cook's part, where is it? We haven't seen a thing. All we have is allegations and and insinuations, and none of them are relevant to her job."

"You can fire a Fed governor for cause. Now, for cause that usually means something like, you're drinking on the job or you're embezzling from from the organization's funds," he continued. "Now, they're claiming — again, without any evidence — that she made some misstatements in transactions back when she was a professor at Michigan State. So this is, I really do think that Powell has failed at least phase one of the test."

Watch the full segment below, or by clicking this link.

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