SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And it has been a tumultuous week at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. NPR's Laurel Wamsley has been following all the twists and turns at the bureau this week. Laurel, thanks so much for being with us.
LAUREL WAMSLEY, BYLINE: Hey there, Scott.
SIMON: Catch us up. What's been happening with this agency?
WAMSLEY: Well, there's been a lot of layoffs this week. That's part of Trump's plan to massively reduce the federal workforce. At CFPB, some 150 employees lost their jobs. That's about 9% of the staff. Those cuts were largely folks who'd been at the bureau for less than four years. One of the employees who lost her job this week was Johanna Hickman, who was an attorney in the bureau's enforcement division. She received her termination notice at 9 p.m. on Tuesday. And because her work e-mail had already been turned off, it came to her personal e-mail.
JOHANNA HICKMAN: You know, it's heartbreaking. I think we do exceptional work at the bureau, and I have been honored to serve in this role for the last, you know, over a year and a half. I expected to be here for another 15 years. And it's shocking. It's unlawful, for one thing, and extraordinarily disappointing.
WAMSLEY: And right now, essentially, all of CFPB's work has been halted. Employees have been locked out of the building and told they can't do any work. And Elon Musk's team, meanwhile, has been given access to the building and to its systems.
SIMON: And where does that leave events now this weekend?
WAMSLEY: Well, staff are bracing for even further cuts. According to a legal complaint by CFPB's union, they're expecting that perhaps 95% of all employees could be fired. A reporter asked President Trump on Monday whether his goal was to have CFPB totally eliminated, and Trump said yes. But for now, a federal judge ruled yesterday that they can't conduct layoffs at CFPB, at least through March 3, when a hearing is scheduled, and they can't delete any agency data either.
SIMON: And, Laurel, remind us - the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created in 2008, and why?
WAMSLEY: That's right. That's when millions of Americans lost their homes due to lax lending standards, and it brought the global economy tumbling with it. The Dodd-Frank Act established the bureau to prevent such a disaster from happening again. At a high level, what the bureau supposed to do is that it's been tasked by Congress to regulate consumer financial products and services, like credit cards, mortgages, et cetera. So consumer protection responsibilities are now unified under one agency that's tasked with being on the side of the consumer, against big banks and financial services companies. And it's really done a lot.
I mean, just in recent months, it's made rules capping credit card late fees and overdraft fees. It sued the payment app Zelle and the banks that operate it, saying they didn't protect consumers from fraud. And it sued Capital One for advertising a high-yield checking account that paid close to zero in interest.
SIMON: Why has the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau become such a target for some now?
WAMSLEY: Well, all those actions I just mentioned have made it unpopular with some Republicans, as well as big banks in Silicon Valley. They say the bureau's too heavy-handed in its regulation, and they argue it's overstepped its authority. And, you know, if it wasn't so politicized, CFPB would be an unlikely target for cost-cutting. Since its launch in 2011, it's returned more than $21 billion to Americans by means such as returning fees, canceling debt, reducing loans. And it's done that on a pretty small budget for a federal agency.
SIMON: What kind of opposition against this is going on now?
WAMSLEY: Yeah. There's a lot of legal action happening against these moves, as there is with other actions that Trump has taken. A union representing CFPB employees says the stop-work order is unlawful, and it filed a second suit, arguing that Musk's team's access to CFPB systems violates the Privacy Act. A key idea they're arguing is the executive branch can't just get rid of an agency created by Congress with all the work it's required to do. So a lot of this is going to play out in court. But for now, there's just no real financial cop looking out for consumers in this country.
SIMON: NPR's Laurel Wamsley. Thank you so much for being with us. Take care.
WAMSLEY: You're welcome, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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