Earlier this week, President Donald Trump attempted to fire the two Democratic commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission, even though he can only fire the congressionally-appointed commissioners for cause. It marks a very sudden end — at least for now — to the agency’s efforts to enforce antitrust laws and consumer protections. And it’s another sign Donald Trump is governing not on behalf of the people but for the benefit of America’s biggest and most powerful businesses and billionaires. Furthermore, if the courts uphold this action — a big if — it will endanger the independence of every government agency that is designed to be insulated from day-to-day political White House pressures.
Why Trump decided to do this is a mystery. The FTC has five members, three from the president’s political party and two from the opposition. It’s not as though the two jettisoned commissioners controlled the FTC — they represented the minority Democratic Party. Earlier this week, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson defended the structure of the FTC on the Bloomberg podcast Odd Lots: “If you have an agency that is exceeding the law, abusing the companies that it purports to regulate, it’s helpful for markets, for courts, for litigants, for government transparency to have people in the other party pointing this out.”
This is corruption, plain and simple.”
FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya
Of course, that’s almost certainly the point of ditching the two commissioners. For decades, antitrust law was ignored and dismissed by administrations from both parties and even by those who were charged with enforcing those laws. Biden-era FTC Chair Lina Khan reinvigorated and restored antitrust law (and was reviled by billionaires and many on Wall Street as a result). Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter, the Democratic commissioners Trump wants to deep-six, are committed to her vision.
Under Khan, the FTC sued Amazon in two separate civil suits, alleging, among other things, that the company is using monopoly power over the smaller businesses that sell through their site to raise prices across the internet. The two commissioners are responsible for enforcing a privacy consent decree against X. At the same time, agency staff began strengthening internet privacy rules — something that affects platforms like Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. They were also in the early stages of attempting to bring America’s soaring pharmaceutical prices under control. And the agency is suing the country’s three largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), alleging they colluded to increase the price of insulin.
All of these FTC actions are presumably in deep jeopardy as the remaining Republican commissioners’ commitment to this agenda is tenuous at best. Trump campaigned on cracking down on PBMs, bringing down the cost of living and corralling Big Tech. These are all of huge importance to the Democratic commissioners, yet the White House claimed in their note to Bedoya and Slaughter, “Your continued service on the F.T.C. is inconsistent with my administration’s priorities.”
It’s hard to see how — unless that is, you view it in the greater context of Big Tech and Big Business warmly embracing Trump. X owner Elon Musk donated more than $250 million to get him elected, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave generously to his inauguration committee, and Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos bought the rights to a Melania Trump documentary and purchased streaming rights to all 15 seasons of “The Apprentice,” pouring millions upon millions of dollars directly into the Trump family coffers. All have been rewarded with White House access and, in Musk’s case, the opportunity to slash the federal government bureaucracy and fire government workers at a whim.
“This is corruption, plain and simple,” Bedoya said on a Tuesday night press call. “Who does this attempt to remove us help? Because it doesn’t help regular people trying to, struggling to pay the bills and struggling to pay the rent. Who it helps is billionaires, and I think it opens the door for corruption, and for a law enforcement apparatus that is controlled not by the law, but by money.”
You shouldn’t need to love antitrust policy or the Federal Reserve to understand why this is bad. But there’s something else possibly happening here, too. Almost a century ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to fire a Republican-appointed member of the FTC. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a president can only fire congressionally appointed agency heads for cause. Disagreement isn’t good enough. Trump’s actions are not only illegal and unlawful, but they threaten other government agencies — including, crucially from Wall Street’s perspective, the Federal Reserve. If the Supreme Court rules that Trump can jettison the FTC commissioners — yes, this is heading to court — who’s to say he’ll stop there? “If I can be fired, I don’t know why Jerome Powell can’t be fired,” Slaughter said Tuesday on CNBC. You shouldn’t need to love antitrust policy or the Federal Reserve to understand why this is bad. The politicization of regulation and policy is, by definition, destabilizing to the greater economy. Decisions that appear to be made for the benefit of favored oligarchs do not make for a healthy business environment, which demands a fair application of the rule of law. It enables a corrupt economy, where money and power flow to the very top, and the rest of us, individuals and smaller honest businesses alike, are seen as so much prey. This is what Khan, Bedoya and Slaughter attempted to stop and put in reverse. Oligarchs — from either party — who are used to operating without checks on their power never want cops on the beat. We saw it during the presidential election when billionaire supporters of Kamala Harris tried to bully her into committing to ditching Khan if she won, and we saw it again earlier this year when the Trump administration attempted to destroy the Consumer Federation Protection Bureau. Now, it’s playing out at the FTC, where the Trump administration is willing to break the law to get the white-collar cops to stand down. Why Trump decided to do this is a mystery. The FTC has five members, three from the president’s political party and two from the opposition. It’s not as though the two jettisoned commissioners controlled the FTC — they represented the minority Democratic Party. Earlier this week, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson defended the structure of the FTC on the Bloomberg podcast Odd Lots: “If you have an agency that is exceeding the law, abusing the companies that it purports to regulate, it’s helpful for markets, for courts, for litigants, for government transparency to have people in the other party pointing this out.”
Helaine Olen
Helaine R. Olen is the author of "Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry" and a co-author of "The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated." She has been a columnist for The Washington Post and Slate, and her work has also appeared in numerous other publications, including The New York Times and The Atlantic. 
