Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., organized a "forum" hearing Tuesday to underscore the positive influence that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has had on Americans' financial lives and the damage that the Trump administration is having on the agency, vowing to fight the administration in court.
Speaking at a press event prior to the hearing, Warren said Trump's promises to lower costs for working families are belied by his administration's extraordinary efforts to dismantle an agency designed to assist victims of fraud in recouping their losses and policing consumer financial products.
"Donald Trump promised that he was going to lower costs for American families on day one — those were his words," Warren said. "Instead he and his co-president Elon Musk are doing everything they can to take down the agency that has recovered $21 billion over the last dozen years for people who got cheated and scammed. That's also in violation of the law."
The bureau has been closed for weeks after acting director and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought directed CFPB employees to
Warren — who first conceived of the notion of a consumer protection agency while a Harvard law professor after the Great Financial Crisis — added that while Musk may
"Congress created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — read the constitution, baby," Warren said. "Only Congress can actually get rid of it. Elon Musk does not have the power. Right now we're in the courts, and we're asking the courts to enforce the law."
During the forum, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called out Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., and House Financial Service Committee Chair French Hill, R-Ark., for failing to schedule a hearing in the appropriate committees of jurisdiction on the administration's attack on the bureau. Instead, he said, the committee chairs have
"This is what we're doing. Do you think the banking committee under Republican leadership would have a hearing on this? No way," Schumer said. "But we are, and we're bringing this to the public's attention, and we're asking Americans to fight back."
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said the involvement of Musk — who owns electric car manufacturer Tesla and social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter — in the dismantling of the CFPB presents enormous conflicts of interest because his access to sensitive nonpublic information housed at the agency could benefit his businesses and gain an unfair advantage over his competition. That access by Musk — whom the administration has recently said is not in charge of DOGE but who nonetheless appears to wield considerable influence in its operations — could have a chilling effect on consumers who should be able to trust that their personal financial information will be protected by a federal agency, she said.
"Who is Elon Musk?" Cortez Masto asked rhetorically. "He's private sector — he's not even a government employee. He's a billionaire. Who are these individuals who are getting access to federal government information on Americans? There should be an outrage and an uproar about what is going on here."
