WASHINGTON _ House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi vowed Monday to fight what she called President Donald Trump's "massive con" to dismantle the Dodd-Frank financial law.
Pelosi said House Democrats would take their case to the public to try to stop Trump from removing protections designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.
"The president has moved to expose hardworking Americans to unfair, deceptive and predatory practices, perpetuating a massive con on those who thought he would stand up for them against the powerful interests," Pelosi told reporters.
Dodd-Frank, which was passed with almost no Republican support in the wake of the financial crisis, toughened capital requirements for financial firms, set up a powerful panel of regulators to watch for threats and created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to oversee credit cards, mortgages and other financial products.
Trump signed an executive order Friday ordering a review of Dodd-Frank, which he has vowed to dismantle. Republicans and businesses say the law has restricted bank lending and consumer choices.
After the signing, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said the move represented "the beginning of the end of the Dodd-Frank mistake."
Democrats have promised to defend the 2010 law, one of former President Barack Obama's signature accomplishments.
Although some rules can be weakened by regulators appointed by Trump, key provisions cannot be eliminated without legislation. That sets up a looming political battle between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats.
"The lesson of history is that when faced with a danger like Donald Trump, opposition needs to grow. ... Most of all, opposition needs to be willing to fight," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., an ardent supporter of Dodd-Frank, told the Progressive Congress Strategy Summit in Baltimore on Saturday.
"Giveaways to giant banks so they can cheat people and blow up our economy again?" said Warren, who came up with the idea for the consumer bureau. "We will fight back."
On Monday, Pelosi and key Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee held a news conference to blast what they said was Trump's attempt to roll back the law's key provisions.
"What a pack of lies he told," Rep. Maxine Waters of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said of Trump's campaign rhetoric about being tough on Wall Street.
Waters also suggested that the Dodd-Frank order, as well as Trump's executive action on immigration and other steps, could lead to his impeachment. However, she did not specify why those steps would be an impeachable offense. And at this point, with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, any effort to try to begin impeachment proceedings would be highly unlikely to succeed.
Pelosi said Trump's campaign talk "was just a hoax" on the American people and that his administration "has unleashed a Wall Street-first agenda to pad the pockets of their Wall Street friends."
On Friday, at a White House meeting with top corporate chief executives including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Trump signaled his intention to rely on Wall Street for advice on reducing financial regulations.
"There's nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie," Trump said before the meeting began, adding that "we expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank."
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said Monday that Democrats need to act to "stop the greatest bait-and-switch in American political history."
Waters said Democrats on the Financial Services Committee have been willing to make "minor modifications" to the law. But she said they would not allow its key provisions, such as creation of the consumer bureau, to be demolished.
"We listen very carefully to any concerns that are identified by community banks, even by the big banks," she said.
But, she added, "We're not going to destroy Dodd-Frank."
