On Monday, February 10, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Maxine Waters, and others will gather for a rally at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Elon Musk and Donald Trump are stealing from consumers, attempting to kill this essential agency that protects Americans from fraud and exploitation at the hands of banks and other corporations.
The shutdown of all supervision and oversight by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will allow all manner of financial companies, from Wall Street megabanks to payday lenders to financial technology firms to credit bureaus to rip people off and mistreat their customers at will.
“Every day that the CFPB is paralyzed because Musk, DOGE, or Trump stop its work is another day that consumers get ripped off, customers get denied bank accounts because they’re not white, or honest businesses lose money to fraudulent payments,” said Christine Chen Zinner, consumer policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, a coalition of over 200 public interest groups fighting for a fairer financial system, today demanded answers from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about the reported presence at the agency of three representatives of Elon Musk’s so-called DOGE team.
Today, the Republican House majority revealed draft legislation to stop the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) overdraft rule from going into effect on October 1, 2025. The CFPB’s overdraft fee rule will reduce big bank overdraft fees from $35 per transaction down to $5, a move that will save the 23 million households in the United States that pay overdraft fees $5 billion annually, or $225 per family.
The Republican-led House Financial Services Committee is devoting its first hearing of the new Congress to destroying a CFPB final rule that would slash a particularly abusive big-bank junk fee – overdraft charges – from $35 down to $5, which would save people $5 billion each year, or $225 per household.
Last week, newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent granted billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team access to all of the federal government payments data. Musk’s team of tech bros are currently upending and disrupting the entire federal government without clear statutory authority or congressional approval.
President Donald Trump today caved in to pressure from Wall Street and Big Tech and fired Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. During the campaign, Trump dangled measures like caps on credit card interest rates, Trump is now sacking someone whose years of work on behalf of consumers benefited families across the country.
Christine Chen Zinner, a senior lawyer for Americans for Financial Reform, a progressive consumer advocacy group, said: “Those billions that Chopra got back for consumers meant less profit for the industry. If Trump really cared about everyday people, he’d keep Chopra around.”
The CFPB’s proposal would prohibit financial companies from forcing consumers to surrender their fundamental rights in take-it-or-leave-it contracts that are used for everyday services such as bank accounts, credit cards, and payment apps on smart phones.