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For all the claims Trump and the GOP have made about being the voice of working-class voters, firing Chopra and attacking the CFPB only satisfies unscrupulous corporations and unelected billionaires like Elon Musk. If civil society does its job, every person unnecessarily taken advantage of by a financial institution will attribute the blame to the right person – Donald Trump.

In just Week Two of his administration, Trump lodged a full-on attack aimed at gutting the federal civil service and disrupting the many critical functions of the federal government. The goal is obvious: to elevate figures who are first and foremost loyal to the Trump agenda, which is mostly about accommodating the rich people who matter to Trump.

Donald Trump has now illegally fired multiple Democratic members of independent agency boards, including Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board and Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, years before their actual term expiry dates. In so doing, Trump has demonstrated yet again, an abject disregard for the basic rule of law, as well as an apparent willingness to engage in authoritarian-esque hostile takeovers of any part of the government able to provide a check to his power. 

On Monday, the Trump administration illegally ordered a “pause” in all federal grant and loan programs, cutting people off from critical programs in order to grab power for Trump himself.

Trump’s inner circle is stacked with corporate lackeys, far-right influencers, and as Public Citizen described it, “Self-Enriching Grifters.” Many of them, though (somewhat) new to the national political spotlight, are all too familiar to observers of one state: Texas. 

We’re excited to introduce the Corruption Calendar, a new project from Revolving Door Project consisting of a weekly newsletter (you’re reading the first edition) and dedicated social media channels (follow us on X and Bluesky).