President Trump's Monday move to try to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook appears set to launch a dramatic fight in the weeks ahead as the president tries to install a fourth ally on the central bank’s core Board of Governors.

But looming soon after is a deadline early next year that is increasingly in focus — when the implications of this coming fight could be even more impactful.

That’s because, as Federal Reserve rules state, the five-year terms of a larger cast of Fed regional presidents expire at the end of next February — and they need to be renewed for the officials to stay in their seats.

These 12 presidents are independently appointed. They haven't reached mandatory retirement age and are expected to try to stay. But, crucially, they are subject to final approval by the rapidly transforming Board of Governors in Washington.

Put another way: If Trump’s move this week to remove Cook is successful, it could give the president four allies — a majority of the seven-member board — who are in line with his vision of immediately lowering interest rates as well as holding potential leverage over regional presidents.

Read more: How much control does the president have over the Fed and interest rates?

“This is high drama and there’s a lot at stake for the Fed,” Jon Hilsenrath, StoneX Senior Advisor, said Tuesday morning on Yahoo Finance, noting that if the president gets a majority of allied governors, “then all of a sudden the president has remade the Fed in his image.”

Regional presidents serve five-year terms, which expire at the end of February in years ending in a 1 or 6, meaning Trump didn’t have such an opportunity during his first term, as he came into office in 2017 and left office four years later in January 2021.

In a recent analysis for the Brookings Institution, senior fellow David Wessel noted that a Trump majority on the Board of Governors could even go further and may have the authority to dismiss a regional president "at pleasure," though the law is far from clear and has never been tested.

Federal Reserve presidents are influential because they sit atop their regional banks and set policy there. Perhaps most importantly in Trump's view, they also cast votes at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings in Washington, where interest rate levels are decided.

In total, 12 voting members decide the path of interest rates every six weeks.

The seven Board of Governors and the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have permanent voting seats. And then, four of the remaining eleven regional presidents have votes on a rotating basis.

The two governors Trump appointed during his first term, Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller, have already taken the stance that the central bank should have begun cutting rates last month.

Trump is likely to get a third rate-cutting ally in the coming weeks after selecting his own aide — Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran — to replace Adriana Kugler until at least January.

That first pick still needs to be confirmed by the Senate, while a second vacancy — to replace Cook if Trump's attempt at an ouster is successful — would likely give him four allies on the board who could then have the ability to outvote the three other governors on things like interest rate decisions and the potential approval of regional presidents.

A new analysis Tuesday from Capital Economics offered some reason for caution, saying it "remains unlikely that Trump will be able to capture a majority of the 12-person FOMC voting committee during his term," suggesting even Trump allies "are not suddenly going to vote down every existing Reserve Bank president" but that it would notably tilt the conversation in the direction of rate cuts.

Another important point from Capital Economics: "Aside from interest rates, a Trump-leaning Board of Governors means the administration would also have greater influence over bank supervision."

Read more: How the Fed rate decision affects your bank accounts, loans, credit cards, and investments

In any case, Trump would have a ways to go before installing enough allies to align with his cut-now plans. The vote at the last FOMC meeting was 10-2 in favor of keeping rates steady.

On interest rates, even Chair Jerome Powell opened the door to interest rate cuts last week during a speech at Jackson Hole, but he has moved to lower borrowing costs far more slowly than Trump wants.

The president has repeatedly called for dropping interest rates immediately and by multiple percentage points, while Powell and his colleagues are expected, at most, to cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point when they meet in September.

Powell was tapped by Trump to serve as chair in his first term but has come under withering criticism ever since, often for acting, in Trump's view, too slowly.

Powell's term as chair is set to expire in May 2026, but he is entitled to stay on as a governor until 2028. If he elects to leave earlier, it could give Trump another immediate governors seat.

For now, Cook has said she will fight Trump’s attempt to fire her, saying in a statement distributed to reporters that “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so. I will not resign.”

Trump’s letter, posted to social media Monday evening, argues that allegations from a Trump ally that Cook made false statements on mortgage applications in 2022 and claimed two residences as her primary residence are sufficient grounds for her removal.

“I have determined that there is sufficient cause to remove you from your position,” Trump wrote in a claim that some are skeptical will stand up in court and Cook’s lawyer has promised to contest.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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