Trump ratcheted up his pressure campaign this week, calling on Fed Governor Lisa Cook to resign after a Trump administration official alleged that she had committed mortgage fraud. Cook rebuked the push for her to quit, saying she has “no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet.”

Now that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has signaled that the central bank could soon cut its key interest rate, he faces a new challenge: how to do it without seeming to cave to the White House's demands.