▶ 0:12:48>> good morning. We will call this hearing to order. Thank you for being with us to vote. The committee welcomes russell vought to discuss the cfpb semi annual to congress. What a new day at the cfpb looks like. And truly a new day in a good way. We have a bureau that respects the limits of its authority.
▶ 0:13:16A bureau that follows its mandate instead of pursuing an ideological agenda. The decisions made at the cfpb affect everyday life for americans. They deserve a bureau that recognizes the simple truth. Access to affordable financial products is a key part of consumer protection. Consumers must be treated fairly. Bad actors must be held accountable.
▶ 0:13:47I believe the best way to protect consumers is through competition, choice, and clear rules. Not through heavy-handed washington control that leaves consumers fewer and fewer options. In south carolina, I hear from constituents working hard but still feeling squeezed. For them a financial product is not a political talking point.
▶ 0:14:15It can be the bridge between getting by and getting ahead. That is why affordability starts with access. As you know, many consumers choose to use overdraft services to make ends meet. The biden cfpb attempted to impose price controls that would have largely eliminated access to those services.
▶ 0:14:41Let's stop for a second because it's an easy thing to run by and later on it will be attacked and demonized. The truth is when price controls were put in place, banks and creditors a limited access. Classic point is when we have the 10% cap conversation. You probably remember when we had this conversation around cap and credit cards at 10%.
▶ 0:15:11The fact of the matter is, when you cap credit card to 10% what you ultimately do is eliminate credit opportunities for those having less than 750 credit score. The vast majority of americans have less than a 750 credit score, which means they would ultimately have to go somewhere else other than a bank or regulated entity to find access to credit. Which means they would become in greater jeopardy than before.
▶ 0:15:45We rejected that harmful rule. When washington writes rules that push responsible products out of the market, people do not stop needing those products. They are just left with limited choices, higher costs, and worse alternatives. It is not just about banks or businesses. It's about the impact on the people they serve.
▶ 0:16:08When unnecessary rules drive up compliance costs, they show up as higher fees and fewer options for families and small businesses. The rules should be clear, lawful, and focused on actual harm. A responsible cfpb should provide clear rules so consumers, innovators, and community institutions know what is expected of them.
▶ 0:16:34For too long too many policies were built on shaky legal ground or the idea that washington knows best. During the biden administration, the cfpb functioned as an active organization that ignored statutory limits on its authority and effectively became part of the white house's messaging operation. That's why virtually all -- virtually all the biden cfpb policies are now gone.
▶ 0:17:04Either struck down in court, overturned by congress, or rescinded because they were so partisan and often illegal. In contrast, clear and durable rules help businesses compete, banks land, and consumers access the products they need with confidence that the cfpb policies have staying power. Republicans have also taken action to right size the bureau itself.
▶ 0:17:33Congress substantially reduced the cfpb's statutory funding cap, placing limits on an agency that had operated far too long without sufficient budgetary discipline and with bloated staffing. Acting director vought, I appreciate the work you have done to rewrite problematic rulemaking, modernize supervision, and operate within a responsible budget.
▶ 0:18:05Finally, we should have an honest conversation about the structure of the cfpb. Democrats created an agency with a single director and extraordinary power. If they now believe one person has too much control over the bureau, they should work with republicans on structural reforms to reduce partisanship, increase accountability, and bring long-term stability to the cfpb.
▶ 0:18:36It should preserve access by promoting competition and choice, not imposing price controls or heavy-handed mandates. That is the standard I will use today. I look forward to your testimony. Ranking member warren.
▶ 0:18:50Sen. Warren: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Donald trump is the most corrupt president in our nation's history. Not by a little bit. By a wide margin. The president and his family are enriching themselves by billions of dollars with shady crypto ventures, pardons are handed out to white-collar criminals like his super sales day at macy's. Reportedly with a $2 million price tag per pardon.
▶ 0:19:22Sen. Warren: Trump allies fork over millions of dollars for the president gold encrusted ballroom. One of his other vanity projects. And then those allies get a regulatory favor over big government contract, or both. Trump and his cronies get rich. The hard-working middle-class families pick up the tab.
▶ 0:19:44Sen. Warren: One clear example of how families pay for trump's corruption is over at the consumer financial protection bureau, the cfpb. For one solid year while he ran for office, donald trump promised to bring down prices on day one. Those were his words. On day one. We are now on day 541 and prices are up, up, up.
▶ 0:20:14Sen. Warren: President trump claims affordability is a hoax. One of the tools available to trump to keep costs low is the cfpb. To return money to american families when they have been cheated. But instead of delivering help for people who have been scammed, trump's acting director, Mr.
▶ 0:20:35Sen. Warren: Vought, has attacked the agency and according to a report I am releasing today where we gathered the data together, those attacks on the cfpb have cost american families $26.5 billion so far. The cfpb's whole job is to fight for the little guy.
▶ 0:20:59Sen. Warren: Since it opened its doors in 2011, it has returned over $21 billion directly to families who have been ripped off by massive corporations, shady lenders, and big banks. Now that is great for american consumers, but not so great for the giant banks and big time cheaters who have gotten caught. So president trump took a side. Instead of helping families when they are cheated, he put Mr.
▶ 0:21:30Sen. Warren: Vought and charge the shut down the agency. On multiple occasions, Mr. vought tried to fire nearly all the staff and shut off the agency's funding. Mr. vought has made it his mission to delete the agency from existence. He has failed. So, Mr. vought and president trump moved on to plan b.
▶ 0:21:55Sen. Warren: Instead of shutting the agency down, just use it as another corrupt way for trump and his buddies to make more money for themselves. Now how do you take a consumer agency and turn it into a cash grab for corporate cheaters? Acting director vought has figured out a way. Take a look at some of the examples of what he has done over the past 18 months.
▶ 0:22:22Sen. Warren: Because I got caught scamming its customers -- it got caught scamming its customers, navy federal credit union has been ordered by the cfpb to return $80 million to the service members who had been cheated. Director vought said that's ok. Navy federal can keep the $80 million and the people who got cheated don't get any money back. J.p.
▶ 0:22:48Sen. Warren: Morgan, bank of america, wells fargo are a few of the bank owners of zelle who got sued for allowing people who use zellle to get scammed out of $80 million. Mr. vought dropped the charges and the people who were cheated got nothing.
▶ 0:23:08Sen. Warren: Regions bank had settled the case with cfpb and the bank had agreed to refund consumers $141 million. Vought dropped the settlement and customers got nothing. Capital one was sued by cfpb for cheating its customers out of $2 billion. Once again, trump and vought said keep the money. The people who got cheated got nothing.
▶ 0:23:39Sen. Warren: Look, it's a long list. The important thing to remember here is the people who got cheated are millions of americans who are just trying to get by. The people who got away with cheating or giant companies that in many cases had already agreed to make refunds to the people they cheated.
▶ 0:24:02Sen. Warren: I would like to enter into the record letters from organizations across the country representing the people who have been hurt by the trump-vought cfpb shut down, Mr. chairman. I have to ask, why would trump and vought do this? Follow the money.
▶ 0:24:24Sen. Warren: The same billion years that poured millions into trump's political campaigns, his ballroom, and his crypto projects are the very same people who cheated hard-working americans and then got a free pass from donald trump and russ vought. This is corruption. Acting director vought is right at the center of it. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:24:48Chair Scott: Today we will hear from the acting director of the consumer financial protection bureau on the cfpb semiannual report to congress was the acting director vought, thank you for being here. You are now recognize.
▶ 0:25:02Mr. Vought: Thank you, chairman scott, ranking member warren, and members of the committee for the invitation to appear today as I reach the end of my tenure at the cfpb. I am pleased to present the consumer financial protection bureau's semiannual report to congress and provide you an update on our activities. After being appointed acting director, our team took a look under the hood and found the agency that was weaponized, out of control, and had gone far beyond its statutory mandate.
▶ 0:25:32Mr. Vought: Under previous administrations of the agency actually imposed huge costs on the american people and stifled the innovation and resourcefulness necessary for a strong economy. Consumers paid the price literally in the form of higher prices, reduced product offerings, increased borrowing expenses, and misuse of their taxpayer dollars. The council of economic advisers found consumers cost them 237 to $300 billion since 2011.
▶ 0:26:01Mr. Vought: Instead of going down the destructive path, we steered to the bureau towards operating with humility, accountability, and fiscal responsibility. Regulations should be justified by statute, not the whims of ideologues at the bureau. Supervision should be targeted to avoid stifling economic growth and innovation and disk are increasing compliance costs.
▶ 0:26:24Mr. Vought: Enforcement should be based on clear violations of the law, not advancing political agenda outside of the accountability and oversight from elected officials.and the american people the bureau's express purpose is to implement and enforce federal consumer financial law consistently so all consumers have access to markets that are fair, transparent, and competitive. We have sought to downscale the agency to the maximum extent possible in rain and its abuses and continue to operate in accordance with that purpose.
▶ 0:26:55Mr. Vought: The enforcement actions are now focused on addressing actual harm to consumers and ensuring due process. President trump ensured the bureau along with other so-called independent agencies are accountable to leaders elected by the american people and no longer operate with impunity. The supreme court confirmed no such independent agencies exist in slaughter.
▶ 0:27:22Mr. Vought: The rest of government works to improve its proposals through oira. Pressing threats to consumers in the areas that are clearly within the bureau's statutory authority. In the past the supervision program pushed well past the limits of its authority under the guise of consumer protection. The bureau now avoids duplication of supervision by other regulators.
▶ 0:27:51Mr. Vought: Supervision is conducted with transparency and respect as examiners and outs of humility pledge they must read at beginning of all examinations. Enforcement also is being guided by a new set of principles so that the cfpb focuses on addressing actual harm to consumers, ensuring due process, seeking collaboration and promoting efficiency.
▶ 0:28:12Mr. Vought: When president trump -- under president trump's been a paradigm shift in the way the cfpb regulates, supervises and enforces the laws as required by the dodd frank act. Although we have improved a great deal about how it operates, the bureau remain structurally defective and I do not believe it should exist in its current form. I have been committed to running it and responsible manner and addressing real harms instead of remaking financial markets and service of a radical political agenda.
▶ 0:28:42Mr. Vought: If confirmed, I know president trump's nominee brian johnson will do a great job in continuing to steer the cfpb in an appropriate manner. Ultimately, cfpb must be subject to congress' appropriations process to ensure accountability and legitimize an otherwise unserious agency. Thank you and I look forward to answering your questions.
▶ 0:29:05Chair Scott: Thank you. We will each get five minutes. I'm pretty consistent with that just taking five minutes. I'll start.the best way to protect consumers and increase affordability is not through heavy-handed regulation but through competition and choice. Overregulation pushes responsible products out of the market and consumers left with fewer choices and higher costs.
▶ 0:29:36Chair Scott: Virtually all the biden administration's cfpb policies have been struck down. Many of those policies would have eliminated consumers' access to important services. I'm grateful this administration is correcting that overreach. We know overregulation has a cost.
▶ 0:29:56Chair Scott: How is the cfpb's return to appropriately tailored regulations strengthening competition and reducing unnecessary costs across the financial market place to promote affordable financial products?
▶ 0:30:16Mr. Vought: I think the biggest way we are doing that now is we have ended regulation by enforcement. We are giving the american people clear understanding of where we will supervise and enforce. It will not be in areas you have not given us statutory authority. We are interpreting our rules as the statutes have articulated and being very careful not to go beyond those statutes.
▶ 0:30:44Mr. Vought: Particularly with regard to the aftermath of recent supreme court decisions. Our view is that congress makes these laws. Cfpb has been given and norma's tools and we want to be very cautious in using those tools.
▶ 0:30:59Chair Scott: Excellent. That leads into my next question. Under former director chilton, cfpb ignored required rulemaking procedures and sought to make new policies through guidance, press releases, blog posts, or threats of enforcement. You have reversed that trend by adhering to proper rulemaking procedures and resending guidance that was legally dubious or overly burdensome.
▶ 0:31:27Chair Scott: Can you discuss why an activist cfpb that regulates the enforcement or posts or press releases or threats is harmful to consumers?
▶ 0:31:40Mr. Vought: It raises the costs on them. When you have a supervision approach and enforcement posture that resembles the sue and settle approach, you don't have clear guidance to the financial markets, to the regulated entities in any way that allows people to take risks, to innovate. We feel that their innovation is going to have a hard edge of a regulator come behind them. That doesn't mean people don't make sense.
▶ 0:32:11Mr. Vought: When we see something we are concerned about, our first step is to figure out what is going on and get it fixed through mediation, self reporting, reconciliation. If we can't do it at that level, we will take adversarial action and we are under on a number of those instances. Our belief is that we want to encourage innovation in financial products, because people will benefit from that. I will probably get asked about navy federal credit union.
▶ 0:32:42Mr. Vought: We want people to have overdraft protection. If you have lived to, overdraft protection ensures your check does not bounce and you pay a worse fee because of it. It's often very embarrassing. Overdraft fee is designed to prevent -- protect that gap.
▶ 0:33:01Mr. Vought: The previous director came in without a rule, without a statute, put out guidance that was different than the previous set of policies and came in and navy federal credit union was out of compliance with the new guidance that had never gone through notice of comment. We put an end to that. That is the type of thing we are doing.
▶ 0:33:22Chair Scott: I will skip my question to make an important point I want to highlight. I will say without question the as the kid they grew up in poverty, when people with good intentions try to limit access the unintended consequences is higher prices for people in poverty. Every single time you limit some fee you think is bad, you increase the costs on the consumer.
▶ 0:33:53Chair Scott: As an example, you limit the overdraft fee, you are sending consumers to other alternatives that are painful, onerous, and expensive. I remember haven't go to a rent to own place to get the first microwave we had in the house. Why did we do that? We could not afford any other options because credit was unavailable. What we do not need to see is a return of congress and the senate trying to make good things better and actually making it worse.
▶ 0:34:24Sen. Warren: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Since you took over cfpb, the bureau has dropped more than 40 enforcement actions against giant corporations that have cheated american families. That is 40. Instead of having to pay back the consumers they cheated, you told the corporations to keep the money for yourself. Consumers get nothing. Let's look at one example.
▶ 0:34:51Sen. Warren: In 2023, toyota agreed to pay $50 million to settle a claim that thousands of consumers were tricked into buying add on insurance and warranties that they did not need and they did not want. Secret emails showed a toyota lobbyist reached out to you.
▶ 0:35:13Sen. Warren: "to see if there is a positive path forward on their already agreed on settlement." to ask you for help after they had already agreed to repay the consumers they had cheated. Two weeks after toyota's lobbyist reached out, he followed up with your second in command and said he had also flagged the issue for the white house. Oh, and toyota did one other thing before they reached out to you.
▶ 0:35:44Sen. Warren: They donated $1 million to the presidents inauguration. Just like that, you, you, reverse their already agreed upon settlement. Acting director vought, that affected thousands of people. How much on average did toyota's customers get scammed out of?
▶ 0:36:03Mr. Vought: The way you just characterized that is inaccurate.
▶ 0:36:08Sen. Warren: The facts are well-documented, Mr. vought.
▶ 0:36:12Mr. Vought: When you wrote the law you did not give cfpb authority over car dealerships. This was a novel theory that did not have a basis in statute and we dismissed it.
▶ 0:36:23Sen. Warren: Toyota had agreed that they had cheated people out of money and agreed to pay the money back. I'm asking you, when you took the action to say to toyota you keep the money and let all those people who got cheated just go suck air, how much was each of those people -- how much had they been cheated out of? I assume that you look at the file and knew what it was that you were letting toyota keep the money for.
▶ 0:36:54Mr. Vought: One of the hallmarks of our stewardship of the agency's we are not going to use the sue and settle consent order.
▶ 0:37:00Sen. Warren: I understand that. You don't know how much money those people have been cheated out of? I'm thinking you don't. It ranged from $700 to $2500 each.
▶ 0:37:16Sen. Warren: If you are eight toyota customer who got scammed and you are in line to get a refund and you found out that toyota said $1 million to the president and now toyota doesn't have to pay you back, you might look at that and think it sounds like corruption. Acting director vought, how many of the enforcement actions and investigations you have dropped were against companies that have donated to president trump?
▶ 0:37:49Mr. Vought: We have made every determination with regard to supervision and enforcement without regard to anything other than statute and the charge we have been given at the agency.
▶ 0:37:58Sen. Warren: How many have donated to president trump? You have dropped 40 plus actions for companies. How many of those companies have donated to president trump?
▶ 0:38:11Mr. Vought: I have no idea.
▶ 0:38:12Sen. Warren: Some of them were telling you. Toyota said we have reached out to the white house and it's a matter of public record where they donated $1 million. So, I have a list here of companies that cut checks to president trump that we know of. Apple, bank of america, capital one, j.p. Morgan. Do you want me to keep going on this? Toyota, walmart, meta.
▶ 0:38:43Sen. Warren: That is just at the cfpb. En banc 2025, across federal agencies the trump administration dropped cases against more than 50 companies that we can document have financial ties to the president or to his inner circle. Let's take a look at one more case. Navy federal credit union got caught by the cfpb charging illegal overdraft fees.
▶ 0:39:11Sen. Warren: If you had not dropped in and called off the settlement, they had agreed to a settlement, how much what our service members have been reimbursed for getting cheated?
▶ 0:39:25Mr. Vought: Though seas were not illegal. This was a credit union made up of service members who would've had to pay for that cost.
▶ 0:39:30Sen. Warren: I'm sorry, Mr. chairman. Thank you very much. They were illegal and they agreed to pay.
▶ 0:39:38Chair Scott: Senator rounds.
▶ 0:39:42Sen. Rounds: Let me provide you with a few minutes here to clarify and finish answering the questions. They were good questions from the ranking member but your answers might help clear that up. I don't think you were given the opportunity to answer them. When we write a statute and we give authority to an executive branch office to execute a law, we lay out clearly within the statute what those authorities are.
▶ 0:40:13Sen. Rounds: If you go beyond those authorities, you are violating the law in my opinion. Could you clarify a little bit, is there a statute that would've provided the cfpb with the authority to go after auto manufacturers?
▶ 0:40:30Mr. Vought: No, senator.
▶ 0:40:31Mr. Vought: Sen. rounds: explained that please.
▶ 0:40:33Mr. Vought: When you pass statute and give us authority, you are giving a delegated authority to us that is something we have to be very good stewards of. The last thing we want to do was go beyond how you articulated or if there is discretion in a law to do it outside of how you intended us to use that law.
▶ 0:40:55Mr. Vought: We have been cautious at cfpb enrolling back guidance that was in conflict with the statute or never entertained by the statute. That is what we have done since I have been at the cfpb.
▶ 0:41:08Sen. Rounds: With regard to the issues brought up here so far in this meeting, it was a determination that the cfpb prior to -- in the previous administration had decided outside of what would have been a statutorily directed order, that they were simply going to go after a particular company because they thought they could
▶ 0:41:38Sen. Rounds: Exceed what the authority was granted by congress. We talked a little about sue and settle. Talk about what that means with regards to what the cfpb was doing in terms of being coercive to businesses and what the cost could be for those businesses if this had not been corrected by the trump administration and the corrections to the cfpb.
▶ 0:42:03Mr. Vought: Cfpb has the authority to do administrative content orders in conjunction with supervision and enforcement authorities. They have the ability to really put the onus on a particular company and make a finding. Have penalties that accrue as a result of that. Some of them are tolling at a very high level.
▶ 0:42:29Mr. Vought: If you are one of those companies, what are you going to do? You will settle to make the pain stop --
▶ 0:42:38Sen. Rounds: Any limit on how large those costs could be of the don't settle?
▶ 0:42:43Mr. Vought: They can get up to very large amounts and that is why you see companies settling even when they know they have done nothing wrong and not contesting --
▶ 0:42:49Sen. Rounds: They are making a business decision, sang a business decision, sangha bureaucrat can make miserable -- make life miserable.
▶ 0:42:57Mr. Vought: Precisely.
▶ 0:42:58Sen. Rounds: Kind of like if the prosecutor walks in and says, I'm going to charge you with a felony but if you make a deal with me to take a misdemeanor I will let you off easy. The guy looks at ins and says I'm innocent but I can't afford to pay that damn bill for a felony so maybe it's easier to take the misdemeanor. Is that with this is amounting to?
▶ 0:43:22Mr. Vought: That is what we found.
▶ 0:43:23Sen. Rounds: We are talking about millions of dollars to has to pay. What about the credit unions? Who once the credit unions?
▶ 0:43:32Mr. Vought: The members of the credit union themselves.
▶ 0:43:35Sen. Rounds: They understand that, don't they? When the cfpb walks into the naval standard credit union and says we are going to charge you money for the way that you have treated your people, who winds up paying the bill? I don't think we made that clear.
▶ 0:43:52Mr. Vought: Servicemembers members and their families.
▶ 0:43:55Sen. Rounds: Service members and their families pay the fee under penalty. Was there more than a payback? Any penalties or cost involved in doing this in terms of responding to the cfpb demand?
▶ 0:44:10Mr. Vought: They paid their penalties. We canceled the redress. We froze it in time.
▶ 0:44:13Sen. Rounds: Along with demanding they redistribute some of the funds, they also -- there was a cost to the owners of the credit union for paying a penalty to the cfpb. What does the cfpb to with that money?
▶ 0:44:34Mr. Vought: We put it in the civil monetary penalty fund for redress. Sometimes a company that is bankrupt has been a fraudulent actor and cannot pay their redress.
▶ 0:44:42Chair Scott: Senator reed.
▶ 0:44:46Sen. Reed: We have a housing supply problem in the united states which is obvious to everyone will step the trump administration is sitting on $750 million in homebuilding funds, mostly from the affordable housing trust fund and the capital magnet fund that could build or rehabilitate about 63,000 homes across the country. These programs are not funded by the taxpayer.
▶ 0:45:14Sen. Reed: They are from a portion of the profits of fannie mae and freddie mac. 22 of my colleagues joined me in writing on june 30 urging you to release these funds which you are holding. Will you commit to releasing these funds? When will you do it?
▶ 0:45:30Mr. Vought: I'm happy to look at that. I did to your letter and we will be happy to follow up. We are looking to expeditiously move in all those apportionments as quickly as we can.
▶ 0:45:40Sen. Reed: How quickly as quickly?
▶ 0:45:43Mr. Vought: It's halfway through the fiscal year. We want to make sure that the funds get to the agency and they can be spent.
▶ 0:45:50Sen. Reed: You have been sitting on those funds now for more than a year. I doubt you'll need much more time. I urge you to respond quickly, actually immediately.
▶ 0:46:09Sen. Reed: You have also -- that would effectively end merritt-based decisions -- merit-based decisions and $1 billion in federal grants. There were 350,000 comments already. Most I suspect are in opposition.
▶ 0:46:34Sen. Reed: We have already seen the effects of this kind of approach to decision-making. Last month the top administration began dismantling the nsf ocean monitoring. The political appointees clearly did not know what they were doing about understanding the science and were forced to quickly reverse the decision.
▶ 0:47:04Sen. Reed: How will this rule ensure political litmus tests will not be used to make grants?
▶ 0:47:10Mr. Vought: I think the rule is about ensuring we have democratic control of the spending that is going out at the executive branch agencies. When you have a policy official in charge of an agency based on themselves being in the cabinet, those are the ones making the final call on how and what we are spending money on through the grant program. I was here last year. I think you are there talking about the decisions process.
▶ 0:47:39Mr. Vought: One of the biggest questions I got was why don't you just not spend on this or that? You have an opportunity to impose your own policy objectives. To the extent that's a valid argument, this is part of that process. We want to make sure that nih is not spending money on research that contributed to the last pandemic just because tony fauci the sides it's a wise thing to do.
▶ 0:48:08Sen. Reed: Excuse me, you have a non-doctor, nonscientist making decisions about scientific research which seems to be a really bad approach.
▶ 0:48:21Mr. Vought: In that case, --
▶ 0:48:25Sen. Reed: Let me move on. I was the lead sponsor of the military lending act based on my experience as a soldier. In february a bank 25 sent you a simple letter asking for next donation and I still do not have it, a response. You are not at all very responsive. In june a bank 25 at the appropriations committee you made military lending and enforcement priority. Let's look at the record.
▶ 0:48:58Sen. Reed: The cfpb took 40 enforcement actions. You have taken only two enforcement actions securing only $6.75 million. As senator warren pointed out, he released the navy credit union from an obligation to refund $80 million in illegally charged fees to U.S. service members.
▶ 0:49:25Sen. Reed: The argument that it's a cooperative, these people were denied funds. You said stop, we are not going to pay them back. You reduced the office from 47 employees to nine. You have raised the cfpb staff by 85% and cut the number of annual exams from hundreds only 70.
▶ 0:49:54Sen. Reed: You are basically abandoning the troops and the soldiers, sailors, and airmen that are being exploited by payday lenders, by all sorts of used car dealers and everything else. To me that is a shame. You will probably be the first of say what you do for -- you are not doing anything for service members. My time is expired.
▶ 0:50:25Chair Scott: Senator kennedy.
▶ 0:50:28Sen. Kennedy: Thank you, Mr. chairman and thank you, Mr. director. I appreciate all your work on reducing the number of rules and regulations. For an agency to get rid of a rule and regulation under normal procedure the apa, how long does it take?
▶ 0:50:53Mr. Vought: Most of the time over a year. Quite some time.
▶ 0:50:57Sen. Kennedy: Yes sir. Do we have rules and regulations that exist that are in violation of the supreme court's decision and the west virginia versus cpa case?
▶ 0:51:16Mr. Vought: Possibly, senator. One is not immediately come to mind but the way that we have interpreted those two decisions is to be extremely cautious with the discretion that exists into law. Expanding to a larger participant in the market that the last record did and got cra, we have used our caution greatly.
▶ 0:51:39Sen. Kennedy: Here is my suggestion. As I'm sure you know, there's a good cause exception to the notice and comment requirements of the apa.
▶ 0:51:54Sen. Kennedy: Basically the apa says -- I think the words it uses, "if there is an existing rule or regulation that is contrary to the public interest." an agency doesn't have to go through the one year process. The agency can unilaterally say this is not in the public interest.
▶ 0:52:22Sen. Kennedy: If an existing rule and regulation is in violation of local bright and west virginia v. Epa, why prevnar agency take an aggressive posture and just say it violates the constitution as interpreted by the united states supreme court? It is no more.
▶ 0:52:47Mr. Vought: We can. We have put up guidance to that effect to make sure the agency no here is the tension so we are all clear. The courts have not necessarily caught up with that understanding of the statute. For those big rules we are concerned about that we want the opportunity to defend during our time in office, the tension is a strategic one about which ones we use and why.
▶ 0:53:12Sen. Kennedy: They are going to sue you anyway no matter what you do. Every one of these rules and regulations is making somebody money. It is costing our business community money, which I think -- which I know in part leads to higher prices. Those costs are passed on. I would strongly encourage you, since you are going to be sued anyway, to make use of the good cause exception to the apa.
▶ 0:53:44Sen. Kennedy: Clearly if you look at a statute and it violates our rule and it violates west virginia's v. Epa or loper bright, and there's your standard. I would strongly encourage you all to do that. If you can give me a ballpark number, how many rules and regulations have you gotten rid of or are trying to get rid of?
▶ 0:54:12Mr. Vought: The president gave us a goal of 10 to one deregulatory to one. We have achieved six in the first term. 10 I thought might be a harder challenge. We did 129 to in we did 129 to I in we did 129 to ito one in the first term.
▶ 0:54:32Sen. Kennedy: Is at and thousands?
▶ 0:54:36Mr. Vought: Yes.
▶ 0:54:37Sen. Kennedy: Thank you for that. I want you to think about something. Inflation is back. Now we all have our opinion about the cause. I think it is more than just the conflict in iran. That is a debate for another day. We have to give people relief the cost of living.
▶ 0:55:01Sen. Kennedy: I really would ask you to consider through the agency you are now director of giving people some relief on their medical debt being reported to the rating agencies. I'm not saying wipe out their debt. I'm not saying that.
▶ 0:55:22Sen. Kennedy: I don't know if it is legitimate or not, but nobody understands when you go to the hospital and get a bill and nobody can explain it. The collectors report that debt to the rating agencies, which runs credit, which makes it hard to pay the money back.
▶ 0:55:42Sen. Kennedy: My friends -- I have 10 seconds under the read rule -- reed rule. I think you should give people relief or medical debt. If not parmalat -- permanently, temporarily. Give them a ring. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:56:06Chair Scott: Senator warner.
▶ 0:56:11Sen. Warner: . I get the kennedy 36 seconds?
▶ 0:56:14Chair Scott: Absolutely not.
▶ 0:56:17Senator Warner: Let me state for the record I totally disagree with your comments about this agency being weaponized. You have gone through some dramatic productions. What is the current level of the workforce at cfpb?
▶ 0:56:35Mr. Vought: 1071.
▶ 0:56:39Sen. Warner: And everyone is back in five days a week?
▶ 0:56:46Mr. Vought: They are on their way back to five days a week. Everyone has a working five days a week. We temporarily put on pause for confirmation of our nominee on the decision of people back to D.C.
▶ 0:57:00Sen. Warner: I have a concerned you cut the enforcement from 487 to 127. Put billions back into americans' pockets, senator kennedy, when there have been abuses. Walking away for that is concerning to me. What is your obsessive concern about cdfi's?
▶ 0:57:35Sen. Warner: They provide funding for underserved communities. Secretary bessent assured me when I and 19 democrats voted for his nomination. We have 34 senators and cdfi caucus in the senate banking committee chair. Why won't you release their money?
▶ 0:58:00Mr. Vought: We have released the money for fiscal years 2025 and 2026. The money not apportioned for 2026 and 2027.
▶ 0:58:05Sen. Warner: Please state for the record that all the money in 2025 has been released back to the actual cdfi?
▶ 0:58:12Mr. Vought: From omb's perspective there's been apportioned to the treasury department. My concern -- we have had a dim view of this program is an administration because there are tons of examples and I can go through them of where in the last administration they were incredibly woke. We have concerns with that. As it pertains to this committee and the cfpb, cdfi's are exempt.
▶ 0:58:40Sen. Warner: All the 14 republicans, including chairman scott, including my co-chair mike crapo, including your treasury secretary scott bessent, have been supportive of helping underserved communities and they have been supportive of all these woke institutions all over america?
▶ 0:58:56Mr. Vought: There is certainly bipartisan views but let me give you an example. When you have 500,000 dollars to inclusive action which is suing the federal government to prevent I.c.e. From investigating the fraudulent use of funds to illegals, that's a
▶ 0:59:12Sen. Warner: Concern we have. I would like to see your documentation. This is the one I want to come to. I respect your career in government. You have done a lot of things in think tanks and served the government. Your own comments -- we have a heck of a lot of federal workers.
▶ 0:59:35Sen. Warner: The cuts from ill-informed doge and a smart doge, but this ill-informed doge has had an enormous effect. Facs facts will show it cost the taxpayers money. Here's the real question. You said in your writings that you wanted to traumatize federal workforce.
▶ 1:00:03Sen. Warner: Director vought, as a former ceo myself --
▶ 1:00:07Mr. Vought: That's not what I said but I'm happy to clarify your previous statements.
▶ 1:00:11Sen. Warner: You wanted to make sure federal workers -- he wanted to add trauma. As a business guy, give yourself a grade on how much trauma you have brought to federal workforce.
▶ 1:00:27Mr. Vought: We have done aggressive actions to have fiscally responsible government. I don't accept the premise of the question.
▶ 1:00:34Sen. Warner: The thing is, you want to ask the questions, get elected and sit up here. You have a U.S. senator asking you a question. Give yourself a grade, a, b, c, f, at how much you have traumatize our federal workforce. I was a business guy so don't use bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. A, b, c, or did you fail?
▶ 1:01:05Sen. Warner: With your goal of undermining the federal workforce I think you did a good job. Give yourself a great.
▶ 1:01:11Mr. Vought: We have done an excellent job running the cfpb.
▶ 1:01:20Sen. Warner: Excellent job on terrorizing a traumatizing the federal workforce. I will go back and think the chairman who have been supporters ofcdfi's. His unwillingness to release congressionally appropriated bipartisan funds is dangerous.
▶ 1:01:35Chair Scott: Senator ricketts.
▶ 1:01:38Sen. Ricketts: I want to address something I've heard from my colleagues with regard to the cfpb being the only cop on the beat. I can tell you that for my personal experience that is absolutely not the case. As governor of nebraska I had a department of banking.
▶ 1:01:59Sen. Ricketts: If any of our consumers in nebraska came and approached us with a problem no matter how big the bank was we would investigate to make sure that consumer got the result they needed from the problem they had. We got involved. It wasn't just a department of banking of the state of nebraska, right? Fdic, ftc, the fed, cftc, and see youa -- ncua.
▶ 1:02:35Sen. Ricketts: They can all take up consumer complaints. They. We don't need one big giant organization that is trying to oversee all of this. We need the organizations to do their jobs. Cfpb is another added layer of bureaucracy on top of regulatory agencies responsible for doing this. I take the example of crypto kiosk atm scams. Nebraska and 28 states have passed laws to protect consumers on this and combat those.
▶ 1:03:07Sen. Ricketts: And that frasca -- in nebraska, the department returned $325,000 back consumers in our state stemming from these crypto atm fraud scams. It was not the cfpb. That was the state of nebraska.
▶ 1:03:27Sen. Ricketts: In the clarity act I worked to ensure it preserves the authority of states to enforce laws such as these crypto atm laws that help protect consumers. To say that nobody else is out there looking out for consumers is simply not true. We ought not to try to scare consumers by saying the cfpb is not doing its job. That is factually false. We should not try to scare consumers away.
▶ 1:03:57Sen. Ricketts: Protecting consumers is not require cfpb. It requires agencies like the state of nebraska to do their jobs. Now let's talk about the cfpb and the impact of affordability. While the biden administration was protecting consumers -- trying to, but it was making it more expensive. Here's the problem. Compliance costs are expensive for small businesses. Big companies can hire lots of compliance people.
▶ 1:04:28Sen. Ricketts: A small business doesn't have the ability to hire the same number of compliance people as a fortune 500 company does. The lending rule through dodd frank. Congress told the bureau to collect 13 points of data. Cfpb expanded that to anyone points and made as he was 100 loans a year. I appreciate the fact you revised that rule so thank you very much.
▶ 1:04:57Sen. Ricketts: There was another 11th hour rule that the emblem of the poorly. The digital payments will stretch authority to supervise non-bank digital consumer payment applications, completely out of the purview. Many of these payment companies were already regulated at the federal and state level. This expanded authority properly identified the market it sought to supervise or the risk within the market that existed with regulation it is supposed to mitigate.
▶ 1:05:28Sen. Ricketts: The payment apps account for 1% of cfpb's complaints in 2023. It estimated the cost for a single exam was just $25,000. I'm sure you would agree no bank would agree to a cfpb investigation or audit costing $25,000. Director vought, when the cfpb right to rule, who pays the costs?
▶ 1:05:57Mr. Vought: Consumers with higher amounts of spending and sometimes the product does not get put on the market.
▶ 1:06:06Sen. Ricketts: Those of you or real cost-benefit analysis on a potential action the rules might cause people?
▶ 1:06:11Mr. Vought: We do now. We go through the process. It is not required by statute. We would suggest that would be a good reform for congress to add to the cfpb.
▶ 1:06:26Sen. Ricketts: I want to emphasize with the chairman said earlier. While some of these measures may have been well-intentioned to begin with, when you start doing some of these rules and you make more expensive -- you are harming the people you think you are trying to help. I know I am three seconds over.
▶ 1:06:44Chair Scott: Senator van hollen.
▶ 1:06:49Sen. Van Hollen: . I want to second the comments made by my colleague from virginia regarding the treatment of federal employees. I want to talk about cfpb. You are aware of the fact that since 2011, the cfpb has returned $21 billion to consumers who were cheated in some way. Are you aware that fact?
▶ 1:07:15Mr. Vought: It has also raised cost of the same consumers.
▶ 1:07:18Sen. Van Hollen: Are you aware that fact that they returned $21 billion? I was listening to a colleague about the cost imposed. I will say to marilyn to consumers who were cheated out of their money, they were glad there was an agency to help them out -- maryland. You are in favor of getting rid of the cfpb?
▶ 1:07:43Mr. Vought: Yes. As the person in charge --
▶ 1:07:48Sen. Van Hollen: As a person in charge of that, you are doing it because you understand there is a statutory requirement?
▶ 1:07:58Mr. Vought: We are enforcing in line with those responsibilities.
▶ 1:08:02Sen. Van Hollen: Your ultimate goal is to eliminate the agency. I interpret your actions to mean you are taking the bare minimum necessary tonecessary to complye statute.
▶ 1:08:24Mr. Vought: We are taking an approach to do as little damage as possible yet does not mean we are taking supervision or enforcement as little as possible. We are speaking to the law. We are in reforms to the agency that would take away from it being structurally effective and we are complying with all orders to do so.
▶ 1:08:46Sen. Van Hollen: But you are also taking court orders that require payments to consumers and essentially allowing the entities that were found liable for returning money to consumers, you are letting them off the hook?
▶ 1:09:07Mr. Vought: If there were not grounds for the original enforcement action. It was a legal theory. We had a called set of guidance.
▶ 1:09:20Sen. Van Hollen: Even if a court found that there was a statute that made an action allowable, you still in many cases --
▶ 1:09:35Mr. Vought: We complied with all court orders.
▶ 1:09:38Sen. Van Hollen: I want to ask you about the case of pennsylvania and the national collegiate student loan trust. The companies have been ordered to pay $5 million over student loan servicing failures. Despite that order when you took over you essentially negotiated a settlement that held companies rather than the plaintiffs in this case, right?
▶ 1:10:04Mr. Vought: See if maybe have authority over bankruptcy law. It was a bankruptcy case.
▶ 1:10:09Sen. Van Hollen: My understanding is that the courts found differently. Let me ask you about another case for set of cases. Is it true that just a single enforcement action has been open since february 2025?
▶ 1:10:26Mr. Vought: We have taken action with regard to companies we've had concerns with. We are continuing five enforcement cases from the previous director. I was asked this which one it refers to, whether it refers to bilt or another action but I'm happy to respond.
▶ 1:10:47Sen. Van Hollen: Is it the case that you have only opened one new case since you've been charged?
▶ 1:10:54Mr. Vought: I want to further understand what it means to open this case. If you have a company name, I'd be better able to respond. The general point, senator is that we have spent our time aligning the enforcement docket with our priorities and we've had a number of cases that we've had to drop. That does not mean that we are not using our enforcement tools. We are in fact continuing five cases that we think are important. But we also have a different approach to the enforcement.
▶ 1:11:24Mr. Vought: We want reconciliation, remediation. Two examples. Bilt. We saw something concerning. We reached out to the company and before he got to the adversarial part of the process they were able to fix the issues. Similarly with credit reporting agencies, we saw things that were concerning and reached out to them. We are doing the job to file their past leadership.
▶ 1:11:47Sen. Van Hollen: I think if you were to ask a lot of consumers who were being cheated right now, they would say that the fact that you only brought one case since february 2025 suggests that it is your belief that there are not lots of scams out there that could be pursued. That is what this agency was established for.
▶ 1:12:08Chair Scott: Thank you for your time, senator. Senator britt, if you go over five minutes, I'm going to cut you off. That is just the way it is going to work. Thank you.
▶ 1:12:21Sen. Britt: I am well aware. I will keep it right there. Thank you for being here. Let's pick up there. When you are looking at, tell me about the cfpb budget. What numbers are you working with?
▶ 1:12:40Mr. Vought: Right now we have $465 million as an annual budget down from $800 million under the previous director who will stockpiling funds.
▶ 1:12:54Sen. Britt: $800 million from the previous director. It is my understanding he only spent $28 million on protecting consumers against fraud. Telling them what was out there and what to be looking for. Is that correct?
▶ 1:13:09Mr. Vought: I'm happy to confirm that later.
▶ 1:13:14Sen. Britt: You have about $3.8 billion in penalties. If we are looking to actually attack consumers, then we need to invest more than that. It certainly would have liked to have seen that under the previous administration and hope to the extent we continue anything, we continue to do a better job of educating people about what is actually in front of them.
▶ 1:13:42Sen. Britt: I know you talked about this with senator scott and senator ricketts and senator kennedy and others. What should congress learn about over the last several years about the risk of giving one unelected director so much unchecked authority?
▶ 1:13:59Mr. Vought: The biggest issue is not the one director as much as it is not being subject to the appropriations process. The main defect was putting it under the fed in which you have no ability to have any sense of responsibility to come to congress to justify how you are running the agency.
▶ 1:14:20Mr. Vought: You do these semiannual reports but when the push comes to shove , that is your main source of accountability and that is what has made the agency have a little bit of an edge that has proven so problematic.
▶ 1:14:34Sen. Britt: I completely agree. Let me ask you this, what changes have you made to the bureaus's enforcement approach to ensure that there is a focus on clear violations rather than legal theories or political priorities. We have found a lack of certainty.
▶ 1:14:54Sen. Britt: When you are regulating by blog post and you are actually trying to enforce, you are creating laws through enforcement, it creates uncertainty that people need to know exactly what the rules are so that they can follow them. Tell me what you have done to try to fix that.
▶ 1:15:12Mr. Vought: We've been clear with our priorities. We have taken a lot of steps to cancel enforcement that were done, legal theories we did not have the statute to do. We focused on identifiable victims, actual consumer harm that is material and measurable. We also have taken the view that if there are state regulators or other agencies taking action that they can take the lead on that and we will fill in the gaps.
▶ 1:15:44Sen. Britt: Let's talk about 1071. I've been concerned about the small ending rule and what it means for community banks. The compliance cost alone is astronomical. It puts real pressure on small vendors. It also raises privacy concerns. Something I have spoken to the previous director about. It would ultimately report sensitive information. That's not the way things should be done.
▶ 1:16:13Sen. Britt: Based on the bureau's review, what were the biggest problems with the 1071 rule and how with those burdens affect community banks ability to serve main street businesses?
▶ 1:16:25Mr. Vought: If that rule had gone into effect, we were very concerned that small business lending would dry up. You raised the cost of information collection. We had one study since the beginning of the cfpb there have been 29 million pages required of regulated entities. 14,000 ftes needing to be hired to do the paperwork.
▶ 1:16:52Mr. Vought: Under 1071, 13 data fields were required. Not over 80. None of these were aimed at what the statutory quote purpose was. We have slammed it down to 16.
▶ 1:17:09Sen. Britt: One thing it showed us was the importance of taking a look at the cumulative impact of all of these things and also when you broaden out stuff, there is a real cost to consumer privacy and to the ability to actually do the work. Thank you.
▶ 1:17:25Chair Scott: Well done, senator britt. Can you help other folks to do the same? Thank you. Senator cortez masto.
▶ 1:17:35Sen. Cortez Masto: Thank you. Do you believe veterans who served this country deserve support from the cfpb when they have been defrauded or there is some consumer protection issue?
▶ 1:17:47Mr. Vought: Absolutely.
▶ 1:17:50Sen. Cortez Masto: You believe it so much, you have it in your humility pledge, is that correct?
▶ 1:17:56Mr. Vought: Yes.
▶ 1:17:58Sen. Cortez Masto: I will submit for the record a letter, actually it is a story from las vegas where I have a military veteran who was in a dispute with a mortgage lender. Unfortunately, he is not getting any response and support from the cfpb.
▶ 1:18:13Mr. Vought: Happy to take a look at it.
▶ 1:18:15Sen. Cortez Masto: I want more than that. I want to know what you are actually doing for veterans. I want a reporting from the cfpb, your staff, what you are doing to help veterans. If you think it is limited to a statutory duty, I want to know that. I want a briefing from you and your office specifically what you are doing and that it is not being challenged in the courts right now. Would you agree to do that for me?
▶ 1:18:38Mr. Vought: I'm leaving the post --
▶ 1:18:41Sen. Cortez Masto: I don't care. You are there now. Send somebody to my office. Will you do that?
▶ 1:18:47Mr. Vought: We are happy to take a look at the request.
▶ 1:18:49Sen. Cortez Masto: So you will not give me a report?
▶ 1:18:51Mr. Vought: Not at this moment, no.
▶ 1:18:53Sen. Cortez Masto: Not at this moment. At some point in time to my office.
▶ 1:18:57Mr. Vought: That you are asking for. .
▶ 1:19:01Sen. Cortez Masto: I appreciate that. You know, it is not lost on me in your opening that you talk about how the cfpb has been weaponized and that it is not following the law and it is out of control because that is exactly what you are doing with the omb.
▶ 1:19:27Sen. Cortez Masto: Since you've been there as the director, you have the funded programs and whole agencies, congress authorized appropriated funds. Even though continued to recognize that we are the appropriate ureters. Thank you for recognizing that. You have delayed and denied funding for congress supported with lost money. You have eliminated all the democrats are our own commissions on these federal agencies.
▶ 1:19:55Sen. Cortez Masto: Qualified people who have responsibility to solve problems for the american people, enhance our standing in the world. Not only are the price is higher because of the work that you have done in this administration with the president, the world is more dangerous. You've been asked about the housing trust fund. We have just passed a bipartisan bicameral housing fund to address the housing needs in this country. Your boss did not support it.
▶ 1:20:20Sen. Cortez Masto: Are you committed to extending the funds there when we appropriate those funds based on the law that we have passed when it comes to housing, the road to the 21st century housing bill?
▶ 1:20:29Mr. Vought: We have every intention of apportioning all funds that have been appropriated.
▶ 1:20:34Sen. Cortez Masto: Without any politics, without any d.e.I. Or wokism invoked into that?
▶ 1:20:42Mr. Vought: We will make sure it is spent based on the priorities of this administration. We will do everything we can to get the money out the door.
▶ 1:20:50Sen. Cortez Masto: Based on your priorities, you are putting us in more danger. Let me put a point on this. The high intensity drug trafficking areas which I have worked with as a former attorney general, the programs across the country, the bipartisan support for them, they disrupt drug trafficking organizations that combat the ongoing fentanyl prices that your boss talks about all the time.
▶ 1:21:16Sen. Cortez Masto: They protect our committees from drug addiction overdoses and crime, your office decided it was time to delay funding to hida. That delay was so severe that hida had to scale back enforcement activities. That is what you are causing and you have no authority.
▶ 1:21:41Sen. Cortez Masto: The only reason we are in court is because court is challenging the decisions you have made in overruling them. And all I ask is stop playing the games. Stop playing the games. Stop picking winners and losers. If we send something to you in a bipartisan way, we hope you respect it. We hope you respect it.
▶ 1:22:05Sen. Cortez Masto: I'm frustrated because I've seen time and time again, you see it right here and you talk about wokism and the last administration and the only reason you are is because you know who the administration was prior to that? The trump administration. They did not go through this whole scale illegally violating the appropriations process. But now all of a sudden under your watch. A question, what is going on here. My time is up.
▶ 1:22:36Sen. Cortez Masto: Thank you, Mr. chair. >> you have been the president's point man on shipbuilding. I wanted to shift gears a little bit and ask you about how that is going and you are well aware of the catastrophic program failures, the lcs, the ddg 1000 frigate. How are the president's efforts going? How can we speed up the process of shipbuilding and what can we learn from our allies.
▶ 1:23:07Sen. Cortez Masto: You have talked about the finland model. What can we learn from our allies to fix this problem?
▶ 1:23:10Mr. Vought: Thank you for the question. I'm always happy to talk about shipbuilding. The finland model is one of the most important paradigm shifts that we have going in shipbuilding. It's not because we want to purchase foreign ships. We want actual domestic investment. The finland model is with two companies. 11 icebreakers. We cannot build icebreakers in this country at scale. Finland knows how to do this.
▶ 1:23:36Mr. Vought: The first four are going to be build in findling in two different places and the next seven will be built in florida and in galveston, texas. One of those companies invested $1 million in the galveston facility that will make them a shipyard that can compete with other things domestically. I will just tell you having been there to be part of the unveiling process, all of those american workers were extremely excited about the jobs that would be coming from that.
▶ 1:24:05Mr. Vought: That is one of the most important things you can help us with. Putting additional pressure on our defense community to manage their supply alliance, to meet their deadlines. All of their programs are behind. I've been to most of the shipyards. They are getting faster. I think they are taking it seriously. We need to keep the pressure on more competition, more yards and to treat this as if we don't have the time because that is the scarcest resource.
▶ 1:24:35Sen. Banks: What is your response to critics? Some of my colleagues are critical of that concept of taking jobs away from americans and sending them to foreign countries.
▶ 1:24:46Mr. Vought: I think it's absolutely wrong. Where we are doing this is where we are either behind or where we need a data capacity. Know what is going to be taking ddg's away from mississippi or maine. But we need the opportunity to have other countries provide additional shipyards that can add more in scale to what we are doing. There are auxiliary ships as well.
▶ 1:25:15Mr. Vought: They are the last priority right now. If we are going to have either additional navy capacity or more commercial shipping, I will be up in philadelphia tomorrow for a christening. If we are going to do that, we will need more yards and business coming into there is yards.
▶ 1:25:33Sen. Banks: The big beautiful bill gave a substantial amount of money using artificial intelligence in ship building. Do you have an update on that?
▶ 1:25:42Mr. Vought: Not with specificity but you are seeing the impacts in our operations overseas. These bolds are already on the water being used effectively -- these boats are on the water being used effectively. One of the most search and rescue of an air man. That is an incredible example of innovation. The secretary is pushing very hard on innovation in this area.
▶ 1:26:10Sen. Banks: The president's request includes a historic $1.5 trillion for national defense including $350 billion in mandatory spending. Last year you sent a $87.6 billion supplemental request to congress for urgent needs stemming from operation epic fury. This week democrats voted against moving forward with the ndaa because of the scale of that figure.
▶ 1:26:38Sen. Banks: Can you help explain and -- in concrete terms why these requests are so important?
▶ 1:26:42Mr. Vought: This is a one-time level, 1.5 trillion dollars. It is not intended to be each year. The reason why it is one time is we have a particular moment in time with the leadership that we have with the president that we have quick where we are trying to get the industry to scale, not just add another shift. Build new facilities in states across the country. We think there is a business case to do that. It is a head scratcher that they did not already.
▶ 1:27:10Mr. Vought: To the extent that we need to do multiyear procurement agreements with the money right now so that they can then distribute it to their supply chain, we have to do that now and we need the money up front. That is what we are doing areas of munitions but also things like f-35's. This is our moment in time and we cannot miss the opportunity.
▶ 1:27:28Sen. Banks: It is really about supporting our men and women in uniform.
▶ 1:27:33Mr. Vought: Absolutely.
▶ 1:27:36Chair Scott: Great example. Senator smith.
▶ 1:27:40Sen. Smith: I want to explain a little better this rule that would give power over discretionary grants to the omb director and a handful of appointees. I am talking about how this rule empowers senior political appointees to conduct so-called free assurance -- pre-issuance agreements to advance the president's policy priorities and do not among other things promote anti-american values.
▶ 1:28:09Sen. Smith: My first question is is it your view that you have the authority to put the priorities of the president and his political appointees ahead of the will of congress who authorized these federal laws and that the federal government should be implementing, doing what congress said they should do?
▶ 1:28:29Mr. Vought: A couple of things I would say. Number one, all of these nofo's are not going through omb. Some of them are, some may not. There is nothing a part of two cfr or the executive order that it stems from that causes all nofo's to go through omb.
▶ 1:29:01Mr. Vought: You give us discretion about how to spend money. This is what the executive branch agencies do. We are going to do that in line with this presidents objectives and career staff.
▶ 1:29:13Sen. Smith: There is a political screen imposed on grants. One of my constituents was participating in an nih funded clinical trial to support stomach cancel. At the trial was on effectively halted. This person never received their surgery and the trial never resumed. I have to tell you to the researchers in minnesota and the patients, this smacks political interference in a health grant.
▶ 1:29:41Sen. Smith: It seems as if the rule you are proposing would sanction, here's another example I want to ask you about and I want your response to this. Top researchers in minnesota made a breakthrough in detecting and treating cancer in kids with the national cancer institute grant. It looked at what makes african-american children more likely to die from blood and bone cancer.
▶ 1:30:03Sen. Smith: It seems to me according to your proposed rule is kind of research would not be allowed and you would not fund it because you believe that studying why african-american children with african ancestry get cancer with dies from it conflict with your anti-d.e.I. Rules. Is that true?
▶ 1:30:23Mr. Vought: How our d.e.I. Policies, we are used d.e.I. Policies. We have intended to get rid of d.e.I. Policies where ever we possibly can. How it would impact with that particular grant would be a decision for a political policy official at nih. That is why the nih director and making that determination to be able to marry up the intent of a program. There is a whole institute.
▶ 1:30:54Sen. Smith: A political appointee would be in the position of deciding whether this health grant studying why black kids in this country are more likely to get sick and die from blood and bone cancer, they will be the ones who decide whether this grant should be allowed and not the scientists and the doctors and the people who know about preventing cancer?
▶ 1:31:11Mr. Vought: We believe that it is important to have the executive agencies leadership, the cabinet secretaries, their undersecretary scum of the people that are in charge will have come in with this administration to make the final decisions and that does not mean they don't benefit from the use of career recommendations, from peer-reviewed studies. All of that will be taken into account.
▶ 1:31:36Mr. Vought: The days of us funding crt because our agency heads did not know it was going on, we are not doing that anymore. That is a decision for the director of nih.
▶ 1:31:47Sen. Smith: With this conflict with the d.e.I. Rules?
▶ 1:31:51Mr. Vought: It would be a granular discussion that the director of nih would have to decide on.
▶ 1:31:56Sen. Smith: This is an example of the absurdity and the bias of this proposed rule and the danger of what happens when you bring political ideology into grantmaking processes, particularly around healthcare. Researchers across the country, including minnesota are making breakthroughs in medical advances and it is not a place for political appointees to be getting their finger on the scale and saying no, this seems too awoke from a and there for these kids are not going to get the help they want. Thank you, Mr. chair.
▶ 1:32:27Sen. Smith: I have no more questions.
▶ 1:32:27Chair Scott: Senator warnock.
▶ 1:32:31Sen. Warnock: Thank you. Mr. vought, have you or anyone you know ever had a medical emergency?
▶ 1:32:36Mr. Vought: Of course.
▶ 1:32:40Sen. Warnock: Do you know anyone who has gone into debt because of a medical emergency?
▶ 1:32:43Mr. Vought: Yes.
▶ 1:32:47Sen. Warnock: Before the president took office to see if he be finalized a rule that would have removed almost $50 billion in medical debt from the credit reports of tens of millions of americans, debt which by the way is often incorrect. Within months of you taking office, the cfpb reversed itself. It joined with the very same debt collectors who were sent to profit off of medical debt to overturn this rule.
▶ 1:33:18Sen. Warnock: How did your decision in any way help those tens of millions of americans, some of them are watching today, being crushed by nearly $50 billion in medical debt, how is this helpful to them?
▶ 1:33:28Mr. Vought: The statute specifically ensures that credit reporting agencies can take into account medical debt. Until you change that statue, we don't have the ability to just regulate however we want to.
▶ 1:33:40Sen. Warnock: You could have dried up narrow rule, right?
▶ 1:33:43Mr. Vought: No.
▶ 1:33:44Sen. Warnock: You could have tried to fight it in court. ?
▶ 1:33:52Mr. Vought: Our oats just to the statutes that you have passed to faithfully execute those laws.
▶ 1:33:59Sen. Warnock: That is not something you could have fought in court? You and I couldn't agree to disagree. I think you chose not to fight it and you join forces with debt collectors. A year ago I along with nearly 30 of my colleagues demanded answers from you about this decision. I request unanimous consent to into our letter into the record. You never responded. Do you ever respond? Do you have a to respond to my letters?
▶ 1:34:30Sen. Warnock: -- do you ever plan to respond to my letters?
▶ 1:34:33Mr. Vought: Much of the correspondence that we are getting has to do with litigation that we are part of so we cannot speak and respond to letters of which we are going to have to provide answers in court. We do intend to have a open relationship with congress.
▶ 1:34:48Sen. Warnock: You ever plan to respond to our letter?
▶ 1:34:54Mr. Vought: Mr. vought: I Mr.
▶ 1:34:54Vought: Am leaving the post august 1 so there are a lot of things that hopefully bryan johnson will be doing and one of those is those types of correspondence.
▶ 1:35:01Sen. Warnock: You are leaving on august 1? You have done quite a bit of damage in a few months. We have a simple ask. Show your work. Publicly disclose the data and the analysis to justify the cfpb's position that the medical debt rule was unnecessary or unlawful.
▶ 1:35:21Sen. Warnock: Since you did not respond, I will ask you now how many americans were projected to have their medical debt wiped from their credit scores by the sea of ppe's medical debt rule -- by the cfpb's medical debt rule which you overturned?
▶ 1:35:44Mr. Vought: I don't know what the rule was unlawful.
▶ 1:35:49Sen. Warnock: The answer is 15 million. Do you know how many more mortgages consumers would have been able to afford each year if you have not overturn the rule?
▶ 1:35:57Mr. Vought: I don't have that over the top of my head.
▶ 1:36:01Sen. Warnock: The answer is 22,000. 22,000 mortgages that consumers would have been able to afford. 15 million americans who were set to have their medical debt wiped from their credit scores. I've seen this up close in the state of georgia.
▶ 1:36:24Sen. Warnock: And the impact, the real human cost behind the very cold and clinical language about statutory authority. Authority which I think you do have. Questions you could have raised. Cfpb by nature is advocating for everyday consumers and I don't see how any of your actions suggest that you been advocating for the people that I represent.
▶ 1:36:54Sen. Warnock: It seems to me this should not be a partisan issue. People on both sides of the aisle know that medical emergencies can happen to anybody. They can happen to anyone. We've seen that up close in this very body. Over the last few weeks. But thanks to you there are now families who cannot buy a house, they are welded -- hounded by debt collectors and denied business loans because they got sick.
▶ 1:37:21Sen. Warnock: You have spent the last 18 months decimating the cfpb. Families across america would be better off when you are gone. I would like a response to my letters.
▶ 1:37:31Chair Scott: Senator blunt rochester is next.
▶ 1:37:36Sen. Blunt Rochester: Thank you for holding this hearing on the consumer financial protection bureau. When I hear the bureau's name, the two words that stand out, consumers and protection. This agency has brought 21 billion dollars to american consumers. It has been a watchdog and in a time where people are struggling to make ends meet, it is probably more important now than ever.
▶ 1:38:04Sen. Blunt Rochester: Director vought, you said the cfpb is now focused on what you call "actual identifiable consumer harm." I would like to see how the standard applies to the people that we in congress has created the cfpb for. A few of my colleagues have already brought up our veterans and our military families.
▶ 1:38:34Sen. Blunt Rochester: Last month we had a hearing on housing. We actually had a hearing on affordability and I raised concerns about military families and the cfpb's role in forcing the military lending act. To me our financial security is tied to our military readiness. And since 2011 service members from every state and every military base have filed more than 400,000 complaints with the cfpb.
▶ 1:39:03Sen. Blunt Rochester: Which tells me they believe the bureau was somewhere they could turn to when something went wrong. Does the military lending act a violation against an active-duty service member actual consumer harm by your definition? When they actually go through these challenges with, as someone said, whether it is a car dealership or a payday lender?
▶ 1:39:26Mr. Vought: We prioritize at our guidance.
▶ 1:39:33Sen. Blunt Rochester: Has the enforcement increased, decreased or stay the same?
▶ 1:39:39Mr. Vought: In terms of enforcement supervision and how we deal with --
▶ 1:39:46Sen. Blunt Rochester: Increase, decreased or stayed the same. We are on a tight timeframe. You said that you take it seriously. Has increased or stayed the same?
▶ 1:39:57Mr. Vought: We have a heightened focus on --
▶ 1:40:00Sen. Blunt Rochester: Can you share the data with us to let us know? That is what reporting is about. Increase, decrease or stay the same. He reported that it is a priority but we don't see the results. The same is true. I've worked on bipartisan legislation, clean slate legislation to help people who have returned to their communities.
▶ 1:40:23Sen. Blunt Rochester: Your cfpb withdrew guidance intended to improve the accuracy of background screening reports would you consider a person losing a job or an apartment because the background check report includes an expunged record or fails to show charges were dismissed as an example of an actual consumer harm?
▶ 1:40:41Mr. Vought: We have de-prioritized those types of endeavors. It was a hallmark of the previous director.
▶ 1:40:52Sen. Blunt Rochester: So you de-prioritized that. You say that you care about service members but you don't know how many you have helped or not helped.
▶ 1:41:03Mr. Vought: I would love to get you to follow up we are happy to do that.
▶ 1:41:09Sen. Blunt Rochester: If it is a priority, I would think it would be a mark on what you have before it. You have deleted or removed thousands of pages from the website. This is supposed to be a watchdog agency. People should be able to go there and find information that helps them with payday lending scams for medical debt or things like that.
▶ 1:41:34Mr. Vought: That is false.
▶ 1:41:36Sen. Blunt Rochester: Actually, it is not false. There is reporting that you put in archives.
▶ 1:41:43Mr. Vought: Something that every administration does.
▶ 1:41:46Sen. Blunt Rochester: This is my time. . These are things that consumers need. These are resources, know your rights. Things that people need easy access to, not to go find an archive. That's number one. I want to give you an opportunity with the time that I have left. First of all, I agreed with senator warner. The assault on federal workers and on people who serve us every day has been palpable.
▶ 1:42:16Sen. Blunt Rochester: I could give you a grade on that. I want to give you an opportunity to clarify. You said that cdfi's are woke. This is bipartisan. What do you mean they are woke? How do you define woke? That's another thing. This administration says they do not believe in woke.
▶ 1:42:47Sen. Blunt Rochester: How do you define woke? I would love for him to answer that last question because it implicates all of us for cdfi's.
▶ 1:42:55Chair Scott: Senator kim, the floor is yours.
▶ 1:42:58Rep. Kim: I will give the director a chance to respond.
▶ 1:43:02Mr. Vought: I will give examples, $6.2 million for clearing house cdfi which shows that a bride best in show promoting transgender housing. Dividing based on race.
▶ 1:43:21Sen. Kim: Let me pick up in a similar place. I let a letter alongside senator warren about requesting information about your recent efforts to overhaul the cfpb consumer complaints portal. I have complaints about this overhaul. There was no legal requirement that consumers first as good a credit reporting complaint with their credit reporting company or wait 45 days before reaching out to the cfpb. I wanted to ask you why is this happening?
▶ 1:43:50Sen. Kim: Why is this fundamental tool that has helped so many americans something that you are putting more restrictions on?
▶ 1:43:54Mr. Vought: There is a requirement under the law to go first to the credit reporting agency but as to why, the portal is exploding because of a phenomenon in the marketplace with bots and influencers suggesting that if you submit multiple submissions to the portal, that it guarantees that their credit reporting will be fixed and if there is an actual problem with their credit report, that if they just call it fraud, that's going to be fixed.
▶ 1:44:25Sen. Kim: On many of the 5.8 million consumers fall under that category?
▶ 1:44:30Mr. Vought: As it pertains to the credit reporting?
▶ 1:44:33Sen. Kim: About the box and the other things you are saying?
▶ 1:44:36Mr. Vought: We are trying to assess that. But massive numbers. 45 days was an extension. Isn't that where you would want to direct people immediately? Get your complaint into the person, the company that can actually fix it. We will do our best and we will submit all of the complaints ourselves.
▶ 1:44:58Sen. Kim: This has been an incredibly effective tool for so many people in new jersey. They have been really frustrated about these restrictions. I want to pass it along to you because I've heard from so many who have used it in the past and are now saying why is this changing? A woman named mary told me how she used this to get paid from something that she sold online. These are the real problem solving types of things we are trying to address. I wanted to shift gears for a second.
▶ 1:45:26Sen. Kim: You talk about some of the challenges that we are seeing right now about paying out grants and proposals. I wanted to check in with you about fema, for instance. This is something senator gary peters and I have sent a letter talking about this discrepancy here where we have seen approval rights for red states remain about 89% whereas for blue states it is 23%.
▶ 1:45:54Sen. Kim: 866% difference where as in the past we have seen this to people historically. At candy was to the american people why the white house seem to be taking a different path? -- can you explain why the white house seems to be taking a different path?
▶ 1:46:12Mr. Vought: The only path we are taking us to be very good steward of taxpayer resources. We are reviewing these fema requests but we are not doing it on the basis of any political agenda. We are trying to make sure every dollar is spent wisely. .
▶ 1:46:25Sen. Kim: The politics involved?
▶ 1:46:27Mr. Vought: We are making sure that all his money is going out on the basis of the sound use of taxpayer dollars.
▶ 1:46:33Sen. Kim: I cannot accept that answer because what we have seen historically is fema doling out resources of the american people to the american people who are at harms way from disasters. That has been equal. This is a clear outlier that is happening. Fema has a review process that is credible and has predictability and your administration and the white house has gone a different path.
▶ 1:47:04Sen. Kim: The last thing I want to raise building off of what senator smith said earlier, the real concern right now about scientific and medical research especially when it comes to your administration cutting off for potentially cutting off support, scientific research often goes years beyond just four years of a particular administration. Based off of just the priorities of one single administration is hugely damaging. Do you understand that?
▶ 1:47:32Sen. Kim: Let me give you an example from the obama administration. The obama administration had a policy against data function research. 20 theology violated that policy -- tony fauci the -- tony fauci t violated that policy to ensure that funds did not go to the medical health alliance will be institute.
▶ 1:48:03Sen. Kim: It is clear damage you are pushing for. I hope you move in a different direction. I yield back.
▶ 1:48:07Chair Scott: Senator gallego.
▶ 1:48:11Sen. Gallego: Thank you. You look many of us here directly in the eye and swore an oath that this administration would protect veterans. Your record shows a different story because you have not protected the office of service members affairs. You want to cut staffing in half. How is cutting that office that exists to defend service members anything but truly abandoning them?
▶ 1:48:40Mr. Vought: Your question is presuming a rift that is not a place. This is a big priority. We have made it a priority in our enforcement guidelines. >> you are planning to cut staff. To be clear, you are cutting a very important office that is very important for service members to have consumer protections.
▶ 1:49:04Mr. Vought: We believe we can have consolidated workflows at the bureau that continue to make this a priority.
▶ 1:49:12Sen. Gallego: I certainly don't think that is the case but that is how you choose to staff. Navy federal credit union was caught charging its members millions in surprise overdraft fees. These members are active duty veterans and their families. I was once a young marine. Every dollar does matter when you are a marine.
▶ 1:49:37Sen. Gallego: You ordered navy federal to pay $15 million penalty and refund more than $80 million back to those service members pockets. I think that is a very just outcome. But you tore up that consent order. Am I correct?
▶ 1:49:49Mr. Vought: It was based on a decision of which the previous administration had put out guidance that was not lawful. When the company was penalized for it, there was no grounds for that consent order.
▶ 1:50:02Sen. Gallego: Did any of that $80 million go back to any of those veterans when you tore that up?
▶ 1:50:09Mr. Vought: They paid their $50 million in the penalty.
▶ 1:50:12Sen. Gallego: They paid their $15 million but the people who were actually affected did not get anything. The previous order would have given those $80 million back to the people who were ripped off.
▶ 1:50:25Mr. Vought: That would have been paid by navy service members of the navy federal credit union.
▶ 1:50:30Sen. Gallego: But we know for a fact they are not getting the $80 million back.
▶ 1:50:34Mr. Vought: The underlying issue is --
▶ 1:50:38Sen. Gallego: Your decision is these young men and women are not getting 80 million dollars back because the previous order actually have done that.
▶ 1:50:46Mr. Vought: It was illegal.
▶ 1:50:47Sen. Gallego: It was not illegal.
▶ 1:50:55Mr. Vought: There is no authority to deal with overdraft fees.
▶ 1:50:59Sen. Gallego: There was an order is specifically designed to bring restitution to these veterans. We were ripped off and you could have found another way to do it but you left them to be ripped off. That what your final decision. To follow up with that, the navy federal is just one of the 42 enforcement actions that your cfpb has dropped and rolled back.
▶ 1:51:21Sen. Gallego: How many of those 42 companies and lawbreakers had discussions with you or anyone in the cfpb or the omb or the white house about dropping or retracting these orders?
▶ 1:51:35Mr. Vought: I have no idea. I don't make decisions based on who approaches me.
▶ 1:51:40Sen. Gallego: You ripped off a lot of veterans. $80 million. You did make that decision, right?
▶ 1:51:46Mr. Vought: I certainly made the decision.
▶ 1:51:48Sen. Gallego: But you are not making these other positions somehow.
▶ 1:51:52Mr. Vought: I made the decision with every one of those consent orders.
▶ 1:51:55Sen. Gallego: What about for the 42 companies? You just don't know?
▶ 1:51:58Mr. Vought: You are asking me what interactions are external affairs has with various stakeholders, which we have an open door policy with anyone. No matter where you are on a policy basis, we are having conversations with everyone.
▶ 1:52:13Sen. Gallego: Have you had conversations about rolling back some of these orders, these penalties, to the best of your knowledge? Can you give me a round number?
▶ 1:52:21Mr. Vought: Every decision I've made has been based on the --
▶ 1:52:24Sen. Gallego: Now you are making decisions. Three seconds ago you said you were not making decisions.
▶ 1:52:30Mr. Vought: Every decision I have made which is the entirety of the decisions under my tenure has been based on the law, the common sense approach to the way that we have run the department.
▶ 1:52:43Sen. Gallego: Will you provide the logs of your meetings and the minutes?
▶ 1:52:48Mr. Vought: We will comply with all the laws on the books.
▶ 1:52:51Sen. Gallego: By not asking about foia laws. As oversight of our oversight capability and the capacity, we should have a right to see these logs.
▶ 1:53:01Mr. Vought: We will comply with all foia laws.
▶ 1:53:03Sen. Gallego: Is not what I'm asking. We provide us with actually logs and communications with these 42 companies.
▶ 1:53:14Chair Scott: The time is up.
▶ 1:53:20Sen. Warren: I have been waiting to have the opportunity to come back face to face with you, to ask for an explanation for what I regard as absolutely depraved, depraved I use that word again and draconian actions to decimate our public institutions, litter size federal grant programs, to stall funding for nih and for cdc public health programs, harming our research institutions, dismantling the cfpb.
▶ 1:53:52Sen. Warren: I cannot wait to get here on behalf of the 160,000 federal employees in my state. The actions taken to what our federal employees has been absolutely evil. It is the most galling aspect of what I regard as shameful tenure at the omb as director. It has been your animosity and blatant hostility toward federal workers. I'm going to read your own words you famously said. Without remorse.
▶ 1:54:20Sen. Warren: You said, "we want the bureaucrats to be dramatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly regarded as the villain." this is so evil. The 150,000 federal workers in my state, these are the patriots of our country who have worked for decades. They did not care whether the president is a democrat or republican.
▶ 1:54:48Sen. Warren: They are here to serve the american people and they will not forget how they were treated and neither will I. In fact, one who lost his federal jobs at the following, "I cannot tell you how terrifi ying it is to be a parent of two children face with the thought that you cannot provide for your family. Cut" is that the kind of family that you were talking about?
▶ 1:55:13Sen. Warren: Did you intend to sow terror for parents who need to provide for their families?
▶ 1:55:19Mr. Vought: Senator, I explained those comments on numerous occasions. I was referring to bureaucracies and not the civil servants. Many of those bureaucracies are weaponized against the american people. We have taken steps to deal with that but as it pertains to civil servants, I have a very high regard for them and the work they do.
▶ 1:55:37Sen. Alsobrooks: I think the words speak for themselves. I don't think anyone can say that combination of words and have it be inexplicable. It is inexplicable. You continue to traumatize and this fall you issued a memo to direct agencies to prepare for mass firings that the court later found were illegal. Did the workers deserve, because they feel traumatized. I saw them. They were lining up in these always talking to me, many of them in tears.
▶ 1:56:07Mr. Vought: You should not have cut the government for more than two months on two separate occasions. Don't think that traumatize the federal workers?
▶ 1:56:17Sen. Alsobrooks: The jedi mind trick does not work. The republicans around here are in charge of everything. .
▶ 1:56:23Mr. Vought: They need your votes. .
▶ 1:56:26Sen. Alsobrooks: I'm going to go for my next question but I will not fall for the jedi mind trick. The republicans have a key to the kingdom that anything regarding the shutdown has to do with democrats. Can you tell me, how much money did the cuts save the american taxpayer? All of these cuts. How much did he save us?
▶ 1:56:45Mr. Vought: We had the most successful fiscal year that we've had I believe in the history of 2025. We ended fiscal utility -- fiscal futility in this country. We saved about $15 billion below the level that you were able to do in the continuing resolution. We passed procession bills for the first time since 99 to -- 1992.
▶ 1:57:13Mr. Vought: We were able to support an probations process that led to $20 billion less than the previous year. Outside of those two shutdowns, which were something that we fought against very hard.
▶ 1:57:24Sen. Alsobrooks: I would beg to differ that this has been fiscally successful. People cannot afford their groceries, gas, utilities. If you regard this as fiscally successful, I would beg to differ. I want to turn to cfpb quickly because it seems you are doing everything in your power to make things more unaffordable for american families including trying to fire half of the workforce at the agency that has given back 21 billion dollars to consumers.
▶ 1:57:54Sen. Alsobrooks: On april 16 I led many of my colleagues in a letter requesting information on this incredibly shortsighted proposal and noting that this plan would force reductions of 80% within cfpb's office of enforcement which is tasked with enforcing consumer financial laws and holding financial service providers accountable. We have not responded in three months. I hope that you will. How can the cfpb meet statutory enforcement obligations with only one third of its enforcement staff?
▶ 1:58:23Chair Scott: Unfortunately the senator's time is up. I will allow the witness to respond to the question. We will add that as a question for the record which will give the director, the acting director or the efficient director 45 days to respond to that. Without cutting you off, I will ask that that question be submitted to the record.
▶ 1:58:55Chair Scott: If acting director vought leaves before the 45 days clock is up, I would ask the next person in charge to answer your question.
▶ 1:59:06Sen. Alsobrooks: Thank you.
▶ 1:59:07Chair Scott: Senator tillis.
▶ 1:59:10Sen. Tillis: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Director vought, tell me the one doge initiatives that you think is the best example of the work that was done before doge or cfpb. Give me the best example of what you thought was an exquisite realization of value that came through cuts that worked their way through the doge office.
▶ 1:59:37Mr. Vought: I believe that reductions in force as a tool.
▶ 1:59:42Sen. Tillis: What specific one?
▶ 1:59:45Mr. Vought: In general.
▶ 1:59:47Sen. Tillis: We have different backgrounds. I've done this for a living.
▶ 1:59:52Mr. Vought: It is not word salad, senator.
▶ 1:59:56Sen. Tillis: I'm just asking across the board. Here is what I'm asking for. The doge office has been acquiesced. There were a lot of clients and billions of dollars in savings. I want to know where you put them.
▶ 2:00:18Mr. Vought: I did not run doge.
▶ 2:00:22Sen. Tillis: You are omb, correct?
▶ 2:00:24Mr. Vought: I do not run doge.
▶ 2:00:27Sen. Tillis: When I worked in business, we had to implement efficiency, we got engaged to do whatever was necessary to identify the efficiencies. Then we go to the seals and say part of this is going to be a reduction in force.
▶ 2:00:42Sen. Tillis: The number one thing we are going to do is absolutely have a reduction in force that looks at our best and brightest, that 25% of the organization and make damn sure that they don't get a "you're fired" notice.
▶ 2:01:06Sen. Tillis: Then we would send out a reduction in force and an efficiencies program that does people, technology and infrastructure. Give me an example of where that was done. The reason I'm targeting you is because I look at you as the guy who books the savings. After we work, let's say we work with whatever department it is. Then we've got the savings. This is no longer going to be a part of our expense run rate. Give me the best example where it doge has done that.
▶ 2:01:32Sen. Tillis: Give me the best example of where a doge initiative, when they have completed the work, came to you and said, Mr. vought , you should be aware that our base run rate for expensive have gone down.
▶ 2:01:47Mr. Vought: We have an appropriations process, senator.
▶ 2:01:51Sen. Tillis: I'm sorry?
▶ 2:01:52Mr. Vought: There is an appropriations process. That is $150 billion in savings.
▶ 2:01:58Sen. Tillis: I've heard a lot of people including you talk about the doge savings. I've worked in the business world. Last time you worked in the business world was at a bookstore when you are putting yourself through law school. Good on you. You don't have the experience. I love the idea of doge. But I do not love is the idea of doge shit that we are picking up because people did it wrong.
▶ 2:02:26Sen. Tillis: I spell it with a dollar sign, by the way, Mr. chair. At the end of the day, we have to be honest. We have people running through here and talking about all the savings. At the end of the day, book it. Every single one of these things should have been before, after, net savings will be run rate for cause. Mr. vought, if you would cement for the record, I may have called you flat-footed and I apologize for that.
▶ 2:02:53Mr. Vought: You don't have to apologize.
▶ 2:02:55Sen. Tillis: You don't have to do anything except present to me the consultation for the record in written form, a consultation with the government agency that has the most documented and sustainable savings so that I can go back to north carolina and explain where doge was successful because right now I'm picking up a lot of bags. People who are some of the most experienced people leaving, scientists leaving nih.
▶ 2:03:27Sen. Tillis: These random, you were filed, I'm sorry, wrong email address. All of this amateur stuff that would have got me fired at my job in a week. I'm willing to be open to it. I love being proved wrong when I'm saying something I'm very disappointed with.
▶ 2:03:46Sen. Tillis: I would love nothing more than a briefing before this committee on the extraordinary work of identifying the target, achieve the target, book the savings and inform the appropriations process. I look to see at least one of those for the record. Thank you.
▶ 2:04:01Chair Scott: Ranking member warner for closing comments.
▶ 2:04:06Sen. Warren: I want to use this opportunity to correct the record on acting vought's response to senator warner about his past comments and his intent to traumatize federal workers. Mr.
▶ 2:04:25Sen. Warren: Vought there is a video of you when you were president of the center for renewing america and it was published in october of 2024 in which you say and I will quote you, "we want the bureaucrats to be dramatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them not to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as villains." then you go on to say , we want to put them in trauma.
▶ 2:04:55Sen. Warren: You said here this morning, you look senator warner directly in the eye and said you did not say that. I just want to close here by going back.
▶ 2:05:03Mr. Vought: This editor is referring to my --
▶ 2:05:11Sen. Warren: The corruption at the cfpb is costing american families. It has cost them an estimated $26.5 billion. Toyota, navy credit, capital one, apple, bank of america, walmart and more. No matter how many people you have hurt, if you have the cash, donald trump and Mr. vought have a pardon for you.
▶ 2:05:40Chair Scott: Thank you for the closing comments. The matter on today's hearing is that the characterization of the director, acting director ripping off veterans, I think is not only false but it is salacious as it relates to the laws that were not written by this congress not being able to be enforced by this acting director. Secondly I would say, according to senator alsobrooks question about the government shut down, it takes 60 votes to overcome a shut down.
▶ 2:06:09Chair Scott: Nearly every report again -- nearly every republican voted to keep the government open. Nearly every democrat voted to shut the government down. Those are just facts. As it relates to a simple rhetorical question that I have, what is the impact when credit scores are no longer reliable because some folks with good intentions dilute the effectiveness of objective information.
▶ 2:06:38Chair Scott: It leads to fewer people having access to credit, more people receiving higher rates and a negative impact overall. For senators who wish to submit questions for the hearing record, those questions are due one week from today, thursday, july 23, acting director or his successor will have up to 45 days from that day to submit your responses to the questions for the record. Thank you. The committee is adjourned.
▶ 2:07:07Chair Scott: [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]