The restaurant chain should “admit a mistake based on customer response (the ultimate poll), and manage the company better than ever before,” Trump said Tuesday on a post on Truth Social. “They got a Billion Dollars' worth of free publicity if they play their cards right” and restore the previous logo, which features an “old timer” leaning against a barrel.
Cracker Barrel stock jumped as much as 6.3% following the post. The shares sank last week after posts flooded social media chastising the logo change, which only included the words Cracker Barrel. Critics said the new logo stripped the chain of its history and character.
In a recent statement, Cracker Barrel said that while the primary logo had changed, the “old timer,” known as Uncle Herschel, would remain on the menu, on road signs, and featured inside stores. But the company acknowledged it could have approached the changes differently.
Cracker Barrel Has Struggled With Persistent Traffic Declines
Source: Company financials
“We could’ve done a better job sharing who we are and who we’ll always be,” the company said.
The rebrand is part of a broader turnaround, led by Chief Executive Officer Julie Felss Masino, that also includes store remodels and an updated menu as the chain seeks to reverse declining diner traffic.
Cracker Barrel didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s not the first time Trump has waded into commentary around a consumer company this summer. He recently posted on Truth Social, supporting an ad by American Eagle Outfitters Inc. featuring actress Sydney Sweeney that had been criticized for what some saw as references to eugenics. The president eventually weighed in, calling the spot the “HOTTEST ad out there,” causing American Eagle shares to jump.
Apple (AAPL.O)
Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook vowed to file a lawsuit to fight President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her, rejecting his claim that he could oust her over unproven mortgage-fraud allegations as he escalates pressure on the central bank.
Her attorney, Abbe Lowell, said on Tuesday that the effort “lacks any factual or legal basis” and confirmed that Cook would file a lawsuit. Cook has said through a spokeswoman that she will continue carrying out her duties to help the American economy as she has since 2022. The Fed has declined to comment.
She had earlier declined to comment on the allegations, which stem from mortgages she obtained before joining the Fed about three years ago in 2022. But she said last week that she wouldn’t be bullied into resigning from the seven-member Fed board, on which she is the first Black woman to serve. The central bank is set up to operate independently of the White House.
A Federal Reserve spokeswoman had no immediate comment.
Markets shrugged off the news after Trump’s letter and Cook’s response.
The firing, if successful, could give Trump a majority of allies on the Fed board and allow him to fulfill his goal of lowering interest rates, even as the Supreme Court has pushed back on his attempts to exert direct control over the powerful body.
“The president is using the criminal justice system to remove people from office over policy disagreements,” said Michael Strain of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “That is extremely dangerous and is, in the case of the Fed, a threat to long-term prosperity.”
Trump has spent months pressing Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell to lower interest rates, mocking him with the nickname “Too Late” and raising the prospect that he could try to remove Powell. He has so far been talked out of firing Powell by advisers who have argued it would be too disruptive to financial markets. Powell’s term as Fed chair ends in May, but he will remain a board member until January 2028.
The Fed’s credibility depends on its independence from political pressure and investors’ belief that the central bank will raise rates if necessary to keep inflation in check. But Trump has said he wants a Fed chief who is willing to cut interest rates sharply to juice the economy in the short term and to ease the cost of financing rising deficits, saying rates should be two or three percentage points lower than their current levels.
“The president has made no secret of the fact that this has nothing to do with Lisa Cook’s mortgage applications,” said Peter Conti-Brown, a Fed historian at the University of Pennsylvania. “This is the escalation of a prolonged and ongoing assault on the Fed’s legitimacy and the Fed’s independence. It’s for one purpose and one purpose alone: to bully the Fed to dramatically lower interest rates.”
No previous president has sought to oust a sitting Fed governor, and the move could backfire. While the Fed is already gravitating toward reducing its short-term benchmark rate as early as next month, a messy fight over the central bank leadership could prompt investors to demand higher interest rates on long-term instruments to compensate for the higher risk of inflation, effectively making mortgages and other loans more expensive for households and businesses.
In a statement, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, called the move “an authoritarian power grab that blatantly violates the Federal Reserve Act, and must be overturned in court.”
A spokesman for Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), who heads the banking panel, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In targeting Cook, Trump appears to be looking to open more vacancies on the Fed board, accelerating the point at which Trump-aligned governors could hold a majority. An earlier-than-expected vacancy arose this month when one of the governors, Adriana Kugler, announced her resignation. Trump said he was “very happy” about the opening and quickly appointed Stephen Miran, the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, as a replacement until the end of January, when Kugler’s term had been set to expire.
If Cook is replaced and Miran is confirmed in the coming weeks, it would hand Trump a likely majority of governors calling for cuts to interest rates. Already, two of Trump’s Fed board appointees from his first term have done so.
Firing Cook would also make it easier for Trump to install more administration-friendly heads of the 12 regional Fed banks, who serve on the committee that sets interest rates. In February, all Fed bank presidents will be up for renewal, which a majority of the board would have to approve.
The Trump administration has increasingly leaned on personal mortgage data to investigate — and now fire — its political adversaries. Earlier this year, the Justice Department received a criminal referral over real estate records from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has filed multiple lawsuits against both Trump administrations. In July, Trump accused Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) of mortgage fraud. Schiff led impeachment proceedings against Trump as a House member.
The result, legal experts say, is an escalation in the way Trump officials seek to penalize, remove, or even jail adversaries. And it reflects the remarkable influence of Bill Pulte, the head of a relatively small part of government that oversees two mortgage-finance companies — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — that backstop much of the multitrillion-dollar mortgage market. Pulte was the first to accuse Cook of mortgage fraud, and he continued those attacks nonstop over the past week. Trump quickly escalated those accusations, first calling on Cook to resign, then threatening her termination, and eventually saying he is firing her.
In an interview with Bloomberg Television last week, Pulte said his office received a tip about Cook, but he declined to elaborate.
Americans’ view of the U.S. economy declined modestly in August as anxiety over a weakening job market grew for the eighth straight month.
The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index ticked down by 1.3 points to 97.4 in August, down from July’s 98.7, but in the same narrow range of the past three months.
The small decline in confidence was in line with the forecasts of most of the economists who were surveyed.
A measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for their income, business conditions, and the job market fell by 1.2 points to 74.8, remaining significantly below 80, the level that can signal a recession ahead.
Consumers’ assessments of their current economic situation also fell modestly, to 131.2 in August from 132.8 in July.
While the unemployment and layoffs remain historically low, there has been a noticeable deterioration in the labor market this year, and mounting evidence that people are having difficulty finding jobs.
U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, well short of the 115,000 analysts expected. Worse, revisions to the May and June figures shaved 258,000 jobs off previous estimates, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1%.
That report sent financial markets spiraling, spurring President Donald Trump to fire Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tallies the monthly employment numbers.
Another government report showed that U.S. employers posted 7.4 million job vacancies in June, down from 7.7 million in May. The number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their prospects elsewhere — also fell.
More jobs data comes next week when the government releases its August job gains and June job openings reports.
The Conference Board’s report said that references to high prices and inflation increased again and were often mentioned in tandem with tariffs.
Other government data this month showed that while prices at the consumer level held fairly steady from June to July, U.S. wholesale inflation surged unexpectedly last month. Economists say that’s a sign that Trump’s sweeping taxes on imports are pushing costs up and that higher prices for consumers may be on the way.
The share of consumers expecting a recession over the next year rose in August to the highest level since April, when Trump’s tariff rollout began.
The share of survey respondents who said they intended to buy a car in the near future rose, while those planning to purchase a home remained stable after July’s decline.
Those saying they planned to buy big-ticket items like appliances fell, but there were big variations among product categories. Respondents who said they planned to take a vacation soon, either inside of the U.S. or abroad, also declined.
