Rohit Chopra
Appearances
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
You know, in some ways it was pretty clarifying that we have big issues that we're going to have to deal with, including agencies that this administration may want to destroy and defund.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Yeah, I think that when you really boil it down, what you see is that most of the things that the CFPB works on are not particularly sexy in some ways. Or your medical bills that are shown up on your credit reports, you know, the fees that you're paying on your bank account.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
uh how much you're paying for a mortgage or auto loan and really what we did in these past few years was prosecute some of the biggest corporations in the country for cheating people repeatedly so obviously the cfpb's work is pretty popular it doesn't matter you know what your political affiliation is The only place it is unpopular is with lobbyists and politicians in Washington.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And it seems pretty obvious to me that big tech giants who are increasingly entering banking and payments do not want anyone looking under the hood and do not want to follow the laws of our land. So I think that's really the big question is – Are we in a moment where they are going to defund the police over Wall Street and Silicon Valley?
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Or are they actually going to stand up for people and lower their costs? And I think it's looking more and more like the people are going to get the short end of the stick on this.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Yeah, that would be a big wet kiss to a lot of the defendants who want to get off scot-free. There is active courtroom battles right now on many of the cases we have filed. We sued JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America for their role in fraud on Zelle. We've sued the nation's biggest pawn lender for cheating military families,
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
We've sued one of the nation's biggest subprime auto lenders for their misdeeds. And the list really goes on and on. There's also advanced investigations against big Wall Street firms and big tech firms that that means that that will just stop. And it means that we will not be able to get justice and money for the people who have been harmed by that.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
I have no clue. I mean, it's all a mystery as to what would happen. But ultimately, I think you'll see a Senate confirmation process. I've been through two of them. They're hard. And I think you will see a lot of questions as to whether or not the law enforcement mission of the CFPB is going to actually, actually be fulfilled.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, I mean, I could go for a whole hour on this. We've seen everything. We've actually seen people charge fees. One of them, a paper statement fee where the company didn't even print anything or mail anything. Those are small. They're egregious, but maybe it's not going to affect someone's financial life that much. The thing that I think is so high stakes actually relates more to healthcare.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
You have so many people, whether it's an emergency room visit or they have a chronic condition, whatever it may be, they deal with this slew of paperwork and bills where they're covered by insurance and get stuck in this doom loop between the insurance company, the provider, the facility, the long list of players. And you know what happens next?
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Their medical bill gets parked on their credit report and all of a sudden they can't pass maybe even employment verification checks or can't get an apartment, can't get a loan because of a sickness that they've had and for a bill that they do not even owe.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I think a lot of people are sick and tired that these credit reporting conglomerates, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax have so much power over what happens in our financial life. And in some cases, don't take the basic steps to make sure that the information on your credit report is real.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Allowing people to put phantom debt or park it on the credit report as a means to coerce you into paying a bill you don't owe I think is absolutely egregious. The CFPB finalized a rule to ban that practice and I hope that it actually takes effect.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, someone needs to enforce those rules, but we also have seen reporting that they've instructed the staff to try and delay them to make sure that they never see reality. Or maybe if the CFPB has been sued by these big industry players to stop it, maybe they just won't defend against that. So to me, I think there's just like makes your blood boil.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
But that's why this matters so much is that maybe maybe it's small, this issue of a credit report. But for somebody who's dealing with it in the moment, it is a big, big deal. You know, maybe that one single overdraft fee doesn't matter to a person. But for somebody who got hit with four fees rather than one, it can send them on a treadmill of debt.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Maybe one student loan payment being misallocated is not a big deal, but when they screw up your entire loan so that you don't get to qualify for a public service cancellation, that's a big deal.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Yeah, and I hear every day we would get thousands of people who would file complaints with us on our website. And what was great is it didn't go into some black hole. We actually sent it to the company and told the company respond. And without really any resources at all, other than the tech that we created, people every day were getting refunds. They were getting their credit report fixed.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Sometimes they saved their home or their car. And for those individuals, you hear – I read the letters that they would send about finally they felt like their government was doing something that they really benefited from.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I think that's just so important that we demonstrate we don't do this just because there's some acronym that maybe people won't remember we do it because we want to give people power and dignity in their life. And I think that's exactly what the CFPB has done for so many.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Yeah, so I think everyone realizes there is a totally different way that we pay for things now. When we go in the store, we tap. Online, it's different. There's a whole set of new choices. But here's what's really shifting, right?
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
The more and more that tech companies and big financial firms know about our purchase history, know our transaction history, know our location, know our friends and social networking, the more and more we are going to creep into a world where there aren't price tags for goods, but instead we're going to have surveillance-based personal pricing.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
based on our mood, based on what we're searching for. And you see a lot of big companies, Google, Facebook wanted to create its own currency, in fact. And now we're seeing how even X, even Twitter wants to be a way that you can move money and pay. And there's enormous value in all of that. And, you
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
if Doge is there to snoop or to find out what its competitors are up to, to find out the plans that other companies have. I just don't know, but certainly that is something that many are worried about.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, I certainly think that for those of us who have serious medical diagnoses
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
when we're targeted or charge different prices because they know we need certain medication or they know we need certain medical supplies, or for teenagers who are maybe in a rough place personally, being able to target them with certain information or to be able to extract from them, from older adults who might be lonely.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
I think actually the price tag is probably one of the best consumer protections we have out there And when we individualize every single price, we're setting ourselves up for an economy that I don't think we want. I've long been worried about people who call for an Uber or Lyft and late at night that maybe –
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
a woman calling a ride share is getting a higher price than a male in the same exact place, or that there are ways to discriminate based on our personal characteristics. And I also don't think that we want these big companies knowing everything that goes on in our life before we are about to purchase something.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
We're supposed to police banking, lending, and payments. And when companies like Facebook are creating their own currency, and fortunately it got killed, But you see more of these big giants lurching into lending and payments. It's not the CFPB expanding into tech. It's these companies expanding into the core work that we do.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So it is true that Google actually sued us because we were asking questions or wanted to ask questions about how they were handling people's money and their data.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So I think that this is really about power, is that there are certain companies who feel that they should not have to follow the laws that our Congress passes, that they are somehow special, that there is an exemption for fancy technology.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
But I think we as people should want a lot of technological progress, but not if it comes at the expense of our dignity, our democracy, and frankly, fairness in our economy.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Actually, I really feel for all the businesses out there who sometimes think that they're chumps because they're following the law, especially small players, while big giants can break the law with impunity Pay a fine and move on. I mean you asked about Facebook. When I was an FTC commissioner, Facebook was embroiled in a scandal related to Cambridge Analytica.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
It had flagrantly violated an FTC law enforcement order and what happened was that they paid – billions of dollars so that Mark Zuckerberg and other executives could get an immunity clause in the settlement. And I actually think most people, it's not just everyday citizens, it's even business owners are asking themselves, how do these big CEOs seem to always get off scot-free?
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
You know, after the financial crisis, John, it felt like there was absolutely no accountability. Millions of people lost their home, but barely any executives were held accountable. In fact, their companies were bailed out and they got bigger.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, you always have some regrets. And I think when it comes down to it, there is so much abuse of power by some of the biggest powerful companies. And it takes a lot of effort to stand up to that and prosecute that when they violate the law. And we could always use more energy from the public to unearth that fraud.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
So, yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day, we always made sure that we were following every law and we did. And I don't regret any of that. I think we cannot have a strong society if individuals feel that they can just sidestep the laws of the land.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, you know, it's really interesting. When I got actually to both the FTC and the CFPB, it really was so clear to me that it was a sleep at the wheel. I mean, we saw so much crime against consumers that really it was almost a catch and release policy. You find them and you let them go.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I do think that just having someone who is a watchdog, it actually does scare off some of the worst, worst abuses against people. And this is why I really do think that corporate law enforcement where people can actually stop those abuses.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
It's not just the tens of billions of dollars we've gotten back for people, but we have stopped market abuses like we saw in the financial crisis that destroyed trillions of wealth. and led to so many people losing their homes. And look, John, you ask like, what are we learning from this moment?
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
I do think that there are sometimes places where we need to say openly, this part of government isn't working. That was certainly true in the start of the CFPB. We actually shut down a corrupt and failed agency called the Office of Thrift Supervision and created a new one. I remember when the letters came down off the building. Yeah.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I do think sometimes we got to find places that aren't working and shut them down. But when we do it, it's because we are doing it to serve people better, not to serve the powerful even more.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, one thing that we have not really reined in enough is the explosion of chatbots. And now when you are struggling with something,
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
it is very hard to talk to someone to fix it you're often speaking to a chat about the cfpb when i was there we did a study of these chat bots that banks use and they all had these human-like names for example bank of america called their chat bot erica and you ask you say to them something is wrong this is not my ch i did not make this charge this the my payment was in process
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Right, and sometimes you just wanna get things fixed and instead you feel like you're in a doom loop with the chat bot where you're saying something and they're saying the same thing back to you. We also really worry about AI being used to impersonate people. A lot of older adults in our country are getting very realistic texts, calls that are mimicking the voices of their loved ones.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I think that that's a place where There's a lot we can do with technological progress to make life better, but we should not delude ourselves that it can also be used as a weapon and it can also be used as a tool by foreign nations that are seeking to do our people harm.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, I guess my view is that I don't think any of us should be groveling to billionaires to save our country. We should believe that people control our country. And I think we should be worried that when there is a click of CEOs that seem to call the shots – and frankly, I do think that that's part of the problems that not only – that everyone is worried about –
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
when it comes to the massive mismatch in power. It's why I think so many of us are huge fans of Lena Khan and all the work she has done to really challenge that power. And I think that that is going to be something that we have to continue to do. We shouldn't be asking these individuals for permission. They are not our elected officials. Well, you could just tell them to fuck off.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, look, it's very clear that there are individuals who have an agenda and they're going to pursue that and it's going to take us to make sure that people are following the law and we're using our own voices and our own power. You're not giving me an inch on this. Well, look, I mean, do I like what he says about the CFPB?
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
No, but I don't think we should be saying, you know, he may have his own motives for this, but it's up to us to make sure that we can rein that power in, not ask them to just be nice.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, look at people all across our government. There are people who specialize in certain roles. Some of them prosecute terrorism. You can't really do that in the private sector. There are just some things that are done for the public's sake. And I think that this is a moment where it's really hard to tell them what they should do. because they have to really live their life.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And I always encourage them to serve as long as you possibly can. But look, this is a real moment for everybody who is trying to serve the public. I think that it forces all of us to reflect on how do we talk about those who serve the public. I can tell you a lot of people who work at the CFPB can make a lot more money if they were in the private sector.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And many of them choose to do that work because they believe that people shouldn't be treated poorly by a bank or a mortgage company or a student lender because it's about people's personal dignity and they believe it so deeply.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
I... Sometimes in this business, there will be CEOs that threaten you, that hire people to follow you, and it's pretty damn scary, but we just gotta keep going because we know that these individuals clearly feel that the law doesn't apply to them and that their answer when we ask questions is to tell people that, or to fundamentally threaten their lives. And I think it's pretty disgusting.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Actually, exactly the opposite. We put into place policies to block that and the bank lobby sued us for it.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, it's really what the public says and does and calls their members about what they... Protest. We need everyone's voices. And I, you know, John, I think a lot of people, including many people who probably listen, they probably feel pretty fatigued. They feel beat down. They feel like this is such a chaotic moment and they just need a break. And I understand that. I know how that can feel.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
But I also feel like it's so important to remember why we love this place, this country. And part of it is because we can fight back and really make sure that we do not lose the things that are so important. And I just think that's really important to remember, even when times are really tough.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
Well, even if it is, I think that I'm not going to dignify any individual billionaire and what they want to dictate about our country. Because the whole game... of why this country is better is because we're not supposed to allow that to happen. We fought hard for one person to have one vote. We fought hard to make sure that we weren't being controlled by royalty.
Pod Save America
Is Elon a Drag on Trump?
And that's maybe some of those lessons applied today too. Rohit Chopra, thank you so much for your time. Thanks so much, John.