Warren blasts CFPB director Vought for undermining Trump credit card affordability

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday slammed the Acting President. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau He is accused of undermining President Donald Trump’s effort to make credit cards more affordable, according to a letter exclusively obtained by CNBC.

In a letter to CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought, Warren, D-Mass., noted that last year the agency repealed a rule limiting credit card late fees, sided with lenders in lawsuits over deceptive practices and paused enforcement actions against the industry.

Earlier this month, Trump demanded in a social media post that US banks voluntarily cap credit card interest rates at 10% for one year. When they didn’t, Trump this week called on lawmakers to pass legislation on the issue.

“I spoke with President Trump last week and told him that Congress could pass legislation to cap credit card interest if he fought for it,” Warren said in her letter to Vought.

“As Congress considers legislation to address the issue, your actions directly undermine the President’s stated goals,” he wrote. “Under your leadership, the CPFB has taken steps to make it easier, not harder, for major banks and credit card companies to defraud Americans.”

Warren’s letter takes on Trump’s affordability pivot and aims to bolster his initiative against his own administration; That increases tensions over the financial regulatory agency that Trump helped establish under the Obama administration. Members of the Trump administration have sought to shut down the CFPB as part of a broader pro-business deregulation agenda.

Current and former CFPB employees said the agency is on life support with Vought fighting in court to enact mass layoffs. stop agency funding.

Vought “should be using its full scope” [the CFPB’s] “Rather than trying to break up the agency, Warren suggested officials address excessive credit card charges and crack down on bad actors,” Warren wrote.

Warren instructed Vought to “immediately reinstate the rule capping credit card late fees at $8,” which would save Americans more than $10 billion a year, she said.

Vought also argued that the industry must eliminate deceptive practices around deferred interest promotions, continue to enforce rules on tracking interest rate increases, respond to growing consumer complaints, and stop bait-and-switch tactics with rewards programs.

“Either President Trump is not serious about making credit cards more affordable, or you are disobediently ignoring his instructions,” he wrote.

The CFPB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.