Trump’s CFPB overhaul cost Americans $26.5 billion, Sen. Warren says
President Donald Trump (L) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Thursday that the Trump administration Consumer Financial Protection Bureau The latest Democratic criticism of sweeping changes to the agency has cost Americans $26.5 billion so far.
In a report first shared with CNBC, Warren said much of that figure was due to moves the CFPB made under Acting Director Russell Vought to roll back rules limiting credit card and overdraft fees.
The report comes as Vought faces a Senate hearing on those and other actions on Thursday; these include denials of enforcement actions and consent orders and allegations that the agency recently removed 15 years of consumer data from the CFPB website.
Since taking office last year, the Trump administration has reduced staffing, dropped or narrowed dozens of enforcement cases and rolled back Biden-era rules to refocus the agency on what officials call its core mission.
Republicans have argued the moves are necessary to rein in what they see as an overreaching regulator. Democrats, led by Warren, who designed and helped create the agency after the 2008 financial crisis, have argued that the Trump administration has crippled a key consumer financial watchdog and exposed Americans to unfair or deceptive industry practices.
The conflict comes as the Senate is weighing the nomination of former CFPB deputy director Brian Johnson, a Capital One executive whom President Donald Trump tapped to permanently run the agency.
Warren’s report attributes consumer costs of up to $15 billion to the CFPB’s decision to waive the rule capping most credit card late fees at $8; This is a regulation that the agency had previously estimated would roughly save consumers 10 billion dollars annually.
Another $7.5 billion is attributed to the repeal of the bureau’s overdraft fee rule; This rule would limit most banks from charging a $5 fee for overdrafts.
The rest of the forecast comes from the CFPB’s decision to lift more than three dozen enforcement actions and settlements, some of which were set to send payments directly to consumers. According to the report, this figure reached approximately 4 billion dollars.
The White House and CFPB did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Warren also sent a letter to Vought listing what she called unanswered congressional requests for oversight during her tenure running the bureau.
