Defending the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with Tyler Creighton

In this episode, we speak with Tyler Creighton about the ongoing struggle to save the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from defunding and closure at the hands of Russell Vought in the second Trump Administration. Creighton is a lawyer at the CFPB and a member of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), Chapter 335. Before joining the CFPB, Creighton clerked for the Massachusetts Appeals Court and, prior to that, he was an organizer for pro-democracy reforms at Common Cause and ReThink Media. We talk with Creighton about life at the CFPB under the leadership of Vought, central architect of the notorious Project 2025 document and avowed opponent of the agency he now directs. 

During our conversation, Creighton details how, in spite of Vought’s attempts to defund and close the agency, the CFPB continues to survive. In Creighton’s telling, the agency’s endurance owes in no small part to the continuous labor actions undertaken by the NTEU and its members. In February 2025, for example, the union sued the Trump Administration, securing an injunction against Vought’s efforts to close the agency. (Read the judge’s extraordinary Memorandum Opinion here.) Then, in late December, a federal district court judge ruled that the Trump administration must continue to fund the CFPB through the Federal Reserve, contradicting Vought’s absurd claim that the CFPB can no longer seek financing from the Fed because the nation’s Central Bank is operating at a loss.

Despite the NTEU’s string of successes, the fate of the CFPB still remains to be determined. The good news, however, is that there are ways that you can support the bureau as it rounds into its second year of the second Trump Administration. Learn more about the fight to save the CFPB from the CFPB Union website. Follow and share news from the NTEU account on Bluesky. Join the union’s public demonstrations, if you live near or find yourself visiting Washington D.C. You can also help fund the NTEU’s activities by purchasing any number of cheeky items in their online merchandise shop. 

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Music by Nahneen Kula: www.nahneenkula.com