“Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook incurred more than $1.3 million in legal and security expenses following President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her in August from the Fed’s board, a new ethics filing revealed Thursday,” CNBC reports.

“Outside organizations reimbursed Cook for those expenses, the filing shows.”

“The Supreme Court is expected to rule imminently on whether Trump has the power to fire Cook for the reasons he cited.”

Washington Post: “In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.”

Said Trump: “I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened, but all I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship.”

“The remarks provide the starkest example to date of Trump describing Wall Street as the barometer for consequential decisions of his presidency.”

“Federal Reserve officials hinted more strongly at the possibility that their next move will be to raise interest rates when they held them steady Wednesday—a notable shift at Kevin Warsh’s first meeting as chairman,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“For weeks, investors had been bracing for a Fed that would keep rates higher for longer, selling off bonds and driving up long-term yields. The decision to hold rates in the current range between 3.5% and 3.75% was unanimous.”

“President Donald Trump’s family crypto business is expected to soon be allowed to operate like a bank — a decision that would give U.S. companies a new route to steer money to the president,” NOTUS reports.

“World Liberty Financial, the stablecoin and trading platform co-founded by Trump and his three sons, applied for a national trust bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, on Jan. 5.”

Politico: “It’s a milestone day at the Fed with Kevin Warsh set to host his first committee meeting as the central bank’s chair. He’ll step firmly into the spotlight tomorrow to deliver the Fed’s latest decision on monetary policy — when they’re widely expected to hold interest rates steady.”

“But as inflation numbers raise the possibility of the Fed raising rates down the line, Warsh’s words will be closely watched by many — Trump most of all.”

“When Kevin Warsh steps to the podium Wednesday for his first press conference as chair of the Federal Reserve, he will enjoy something his predecessor Jerome Powell lacked for years: breathing room from the president,” CNBC reports.

“The new Fed chair will attempt to use that freedom to make his case internally for far-reaching change at the Fed, people who know him and closely follow the Fed said. Warsh’s reform agenda includes moving the Fed slowly toward the lower rates Warsh has endorsed as well as reducing the Fed’s multi-billion-dollar balance sheet and changing how it thinks about inflation. Making that happen will require carefully marshaling the extensive but not unlimited political capital that comes with his new position.”

CNBC: “Markets head into the first Fed meeting run by new Chair Kevin Warsh with almost no idea what he thinks about the recent surge in job growth, the acceleration in inflation or the path of interest rates.”

“And that may be by design.”

“Warsh has strongly criticized Fed communications, saying they have led to policy errors and placed the Fed more at the center of market decisions and the economy than it should be. His plans for ‘regime change’ include a rethink of how the Fed forecasts and talks about its plans for monetary policy. That appears to include both quantity and frequency.”

New York Times: “SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket-building, satellite-launching and artificial intelligence company, is set to go public today at $135 a share. The company plans to sell 555 million of them. That means SpaceX would raise around $75 billion, putting its valuation at $1.77 trillion, the largest I.P.O. in history.”

“It could make Musk the world’s first trillionaire. Or it could tank. Some analysts have argued that SpaceX is significantly overvalued. The market could decide that Musk’s an overpromiser and pass on the stock’s high price.”

Risking little of their own money, President Trump and his sons have added at least $2.3 billion to the family fortune from their main crypto ventures, while the investors they’ve wooed have taken a $2.3 billion hit, a Reuters examination found.

Wall Street Journal: “The Justice Department has sent far-ranging subpoenas to several of America’s largest banks including JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America, requesting information about whether they ‘debanked’ clients, or improperly closed customer accounts for political reasons.”

“The subpoenas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., headed by Jeanine Pirro, escalate a campaign by President Trump to root out evidence that banks allegedly discriminated against conservatives and politically controversial industries, including his own family.”

Bloomberg: “President Donald Trump said Federal Reserve policymakers would be wrong to raise interest rates after a blowout US jobs report, while insisting he doesn’t want to influence Kevin Warsh before he chairs his first Fed meeting.”

Said Trump: “Nowadays when you have good reports, the market goes down because they think they’re going to raise interest rates. There’s no reason to raise interest rates.”

“In a speech that dwelled on lofty civic themes, former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell grew conspicuously specific about one thing on Sunday night: that the central bank cannot survive if any administration finds a way to remove its officials over policy disagreements,” the Wall Street Journal reports. 

“Powell, now a Fed governor, accepted an award recognizing political courage from the family of former President John F. Kennedy at a ceremony in Boston. Speaking in generalities about institutions, the rule of law and the inheritance of American democracy, he named no president and aired no specific grievance.”

“But on the structure that keeps monetary policy out of a president’s hands, he was exact.”

CNN: “The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is asking a judge to vacate the Biden-era penalty that it imposed last year on a cryptocurrency exchange run by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss — prominent donors to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.”

Wall Street Journal: “Warsh is set to be sworn in as the nation’s top central banker at the White House on Friday, the first Fed chair to take the oath there since Alan Greenspan in 1987. It is also his first public appearance with Trump since the president chose him in January after a monthslong public contest.”

“He takes over at a moment fraught with risk. Inflation is rising, long-term bond yields are climbing, and a growing number of investors say the Fed’s next move could be a rate increase—not the cut Trump wanted and Warsh was hired to deliver.”