Mick Mulvaney is unapologetic about his recent confrontations with Sen. Elizabeth Warren over his management of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and escalated the public spat on Thursday by saying he’s merely wielding powers that she, as the intellectual author of the agency, granted him.
“If you don’t like it, talk to the person who wrote the statute,” Mulvaney said during an appearance at the Chamber of Commerce. “Because all I’m doing is the role you laid out.”
Mulvaney, the bureau’s acting director, has been sparring with the Massachusetts Democratic senator in recent weeks over his management of regulation of payday lending. After he delayed a major rule on payday lenders and backed off lawsuits against them, Warren demanded an explanation, suggesting he was in the industry’s pocket. He dodged that inquiry, which she then resubmitted.
On Thursday, Mulvaney indicated he wouldn’t be providing a fuller explanation for his actions. He doesn’t have to, he explained, because of the power granted to the CFPB director to act unilaterally. The agency was created in 2010 by Democratic legislation, and Mulvaney is the first GOP-appointed leader.
Under the law, the agency is headed by a single director, rather than a bipartisan commission, who has the power to put forth rules and pursue lawsuits. Warren wasn’t in office when the law was written, but did promote the idea for the agency as a Harvard law professor.
“Elections have consequences,” Mulvaney said, calling it “absurd” to think he wouldn’t change course from the one set by his Obama-appointed predecessor, Richard Cordray.
Asked specifically about the payday lending rule, Mulvaney declined to say what his intentions were, saying instead that he would follow the process for soliciting comments from the public and revising the rule.
But he did say that the previous rulemaking under Cordray “ignored” the advice submitted by officials from Florida, which has imposed a less restrictive regime for regulating payday loans.
