A system and method for mitigating interference of a radio frequency (RF) signal includes a receiver configured to include: a decomposition module that decomposes a received RF signal into sub-bands via a multi-stage filter, each sub-band being configured to operate on real and imaginary components of the RF signal, and each stage being scaled for separating time-frequency content of the desired signal from time-frequency content of the interference; a mitigation module that suppresses the interference of the RF signal in each sub-band by zeroing an output of a respective sub-band when the frequency content exceeds a predetermined threshold; and a reconstruction module that reconstructs the RF signal from the mitigation module minus the interference. The receiver is configured to determine whether the multi-stage filter is to be reinitialized with updated time and frequency resolution requirements to improve system response.