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The fight between Elizabeth Warren and Trump's budget director is starting to get ugly

Mick Mulvaney shot back at Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a feud over loosening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's rules on payday lenders.

  • Mick Mulvaney fired back at Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday after the senator asked about recent decisions by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which Mulvaney leads.
  • Mulvaney said he "rejected" the Democratic senator's insinuation that he loosened rules on payday lenders due to campaign donations.
  • The CFPB acting director then suggested that Warren was in favor of a rule that ended forced arbitration clauses in customer contracts because of donations from trial lawyers.

The war of words between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the Trump administration's budget director reached a fever pitch on Friday as the two sides clash over rules on payday lenders.

In a letter to Warren on Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney pushed back against the Massachusetts Democrat after she questioned some of his decisions as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Warren was instrumental in the creation of the CFPB, which was set up to protect consumers against financial fraud by large institutions. Mulvaney— who has been critical of the CFPB in the past — was named by President Donald Trump to lead the agency after its former director, Richard Cordray, stepped down. Warren was not a fan of the selection.

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The senator took particular issue when the CFPB, reportedly at the direction of Mulvaney, dropped investigations into payday lenders that were charging interest of up to 900% on loans, and put a new rule to regulate these lenders on hold.

Of particular interest was the CFPB's decision to drop an investigation into

"I reject your insinuation — repeated three times in as many pages — that my actions as Acting Director are based on considerations other than the careful examination of the law and the facts particular to many matter," Mulvaney said.

The OMB and CFPB director then added a shot at Warren. Mulvaney's letter said the suggestion about payday lenders was akin to him suggesting that the senator supported a rule to end forced arbitration clauses in customer contracts because she took donations from lawyers. From the letter:

In a reply later Friday, Warren and Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Jeff Merkley took Mulvaney to task for what they deemed was an inadequate reply to their original letter.

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