Almost immediately after returning to power, Donald Trump and his administration got to work firing thousands of federal employees as part of a larger effort to dismantle much of the federal government. Many of these layoffs were legally dubious, which is one of the key reasons judges keep telling the White House to bring back officials who were ousted unjustly.
The Republican president, however, appears undeterred. Reuters reported:
President Donald Trump fired two Democratic commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, in another major test of the independence of regulatory agencies. A White House official confirmed the firings of Democratic Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter after they were first reported by Reuters, but had no additional comment.
Part of what makes developments like these important is the real-world impact the move will have. “By illegally firing two senate-confirmed Democratic commissioners, Trump has given a green light to businesses across the country to gouge consumers and skyrocket prices for American families,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. The New York Democrat added, “Make no mistake about it: this decision will directly lead to higher prices for Americans.”
In her own statement, Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said: “Illegally gutting the Commission will empower fraudsters and monopolists, and consumers will pay the price.”
That’s true. The Federal Trade Commission enforces a variety of consumer protection rules, including antitrust laws, and the more the White House undermines the FTC and its work, the worse it will be for the public.
The senators’ use of the word “illegally” was also highly relevant: The Supreme Court ruled in 1935 that FTC commissioners can only be fired for good cause, such as neglecting their duties. The White House appears to have simply ignored this precedent and ousted two FTC commissioners anyway — not because of poor performance, but because they were Democratic appointees.
Both Bedoya and Kelly are reportedly preparing to take the matter to court, and if recent history is any guide, Trump’s Justice Department will likely struggle to defend the decision.
But stepping back, there’s a larger concern that’s worth appreciating.
One of the first reports published about the Project 2025 initiative was published by The New York Times in July 2023, and it focused on one of the endeavor’s principal priorities: Trump and his allies, the report explained, were “planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government … reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.” The Times added that Trump and his team planned to “centralize more power in the Oval Office … increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House.” The 2023 article specifically referenced the Federal Trade Commission as an independent agency that Trump and the Project 2025 authors wanted to bring “under direct presidential control.” Nearly two years later, we now know how serious Team Trump was, and is, about this goal. Indeed, we’ve effectively reached the point at which the White House, for all intents and purposes, hardly recognizes any governmental entity as independent. Even if one were inclined to shrug their shoulders about the fate of a couple of FTC commissioners, moves like these should be seen for what they are: power grabs from a president who appears increasingly indifferent to institutional limits and the rule of law.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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