The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been shut down by President Trump, at least for this week and possibly much longer, perhaps permanently.

The agency, which was created by Congress after the 2008 financial crisis, has limited credit card fees, made mortgages, loans easier to understand, and returned billions of dollars to consumers, but it's also

long been a target by many who see it as overly aggressive. Rohit Chopra is the former director

of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and joins us now. Thanks for coming in. Good to be here.

So this has been known as one of the nation's most powerful watchdog agencies. Why? What has

typically fallen under its purview since its

creation? Well, we saw what happened in the years leading up to the financial crisis, mortgages

that were setting people up to fail, and it crashed the economy. So what Congress did is

created some real law enforcement with teeth to take down crimes against consumers.

And over the years, we have recovered billions of dollars of funds that were really taken

from people.

They were cheated, and it's back in their pockets.

I don't think it makes any sense to defund law enforcement that is policing

Wall Street, big tech companies, and others who are taking advantage of people who are just

trying to get by.

And the broad scope of work is one of the reasons, as you will know, why Republicans have

been targeting it for so long.

Russell Vote, who is the newly installed

acting head of the agency, over the weekend, he tweeted this. The CFPB has been a woke and

weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time. This must end.

To which you would say what? Well, I don't know what on earth that means.

The actions that have been taken by the CFPB in the past few years are against debt collectors who are illegally collecting on medical debt, against companies like Capital One, which have been withholding billions of dollars in interest, credit reporting

...