Workers say Donald Trump’s consumer watchdog bids to absorb the gut into his gut, making it impossible to protect consumers amid fears of a recession.
For months, the Trump administration has been demolishing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and pushing for the majority of its workforce to be fired. A torn American can “turn anywhere” if successful, staff told the Guardian.
“The institutions created by Congress after the last financial crisis to prevent another financial crisis are now fully handcuffed,” said a CFPB lawyer. “And that’s scary because we’re on another major financial crisis.
“One of the things that were created to be impossible for us to do is when we need it the most.”
Trump officials tried to xx about 1,500 of the CFPB’s 1,700 workers last month, but his plans are expected to be blocked by a federal judge.
“This whirlwind is struggling with everyone, but everyone is coming back with more fights to continue the bureau, because they know the harm that people will visit if it’s underneath,” the agency’s software engineer said. “When it comes to loans, mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, and bank accounts, we protect everyone.
“We’ve helped millions of people. We’ve returned billions of dollars. That’s not that there’s no place to resort to when banks and credit cards tear you apart. That’s what everyone is exposed to.
Trump administration candidate Jonathan McCernan has been in line this month to become the domestic finances executive director at the U.S. Treasury Department. The White House said it intends to withdraw his nomination to lead the CFPB. No alternative candidates have been announced, and it has promoted the agency’s suspicion that the administration had no intention of moving forward with McKelnan’s nomination in the first place.
“I don’t think they’re going to check him out,” said a CFPB lawyer. “They used it as a way to claim they weren’t trying to close the department at hearings.”
McCernan’s nomination, along with three other Trump candidates, advanced at a Senate Banking Committee hearing in early March. All three were approved by the US Senate within two weeks of the hearing, but McCernan was not.
Since February, the interim director of the CFPB was Las Vought, director of the White House budget firm and architect of the Right-wing Project 2025 Manifesto. His term in acting roles has a 210-day limit.
“I think the goal is to try and close agents before Vought’s time rises as proxy director, so they’re pushing hard to get everyone to be allowed right away,” the lawyer said.
Workers also criticized the so-called “government efficiency” behaviour in government agencies, noting that the CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve, and sent over $21 billion back directly to Americans.
“They’re not interested in efficiency,” another employee said. “There was no plan on how to maintain a Congress-manded program like the military’s Veterans Office. They shot first and didn’t even question him later. Russell vaught, and this Trump administration is reckless and unnecessarily cruel.”
Earlier this month, the CFPB published a list of 70 policy and regulatory guidance documents it plans to withdraw. This prohibits lenders from not considering borrowers’ medical information during credit valuations, including exemptions from medical obligations from their credit reports, and fires three commissioners at the Consumer Product Safety Commission within the agency.
“I think it’s the show to say to some extent that they’re doing something,” the lawyer said. “It’s causing confusion. They think they’re super business-friendly, but everything they’ve done so far is absolutely useless for most of the businesses we regulate.
“We don’t have enforcement, we don’t have tests on some of the worst and worst. We want to stop the harm before it happens, because that’s good for everyone. The type of question asked is that they don’t know what we’re doing and they don’t care.”
The White House and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency did not respond to multiple requests for comment.