President Trump Would Like You To Say Goodbye To Our Food Inspectors
...Among Other Outrageous Attacks On Enforcement Capacity
This week has seen further escalations in an already dramatic first month of Trump 2.0. In particular, in addition to “cartoonishly corrupt” moves like signing an order to halt enforcement of a bribery ban, the Trump administration has used a number of methods to reduce enforcement capacity across federal agencies, building on the hiring and funding freezes Trump ordered on his first day in office. (While judges have readily agreed to challenges to the funding freeze, it appears the administration is illegally withholding funding, anyway.)
We’re highlighting four examples of Trump attacks on enforcement capacity in this week’s newsletter, in a format we plan to continue as a more formal enforcement reduction tracker (coming soon—see our socials for a list of RDP trackers already underway).
There are some hopeful examples of resistance to the Trump-Musk attacks on government functions and capacity—like, for instance, the USAID Inspector General continuing work despite Trump and Musk’s vigorous efforts to shut the agency down, including releasing an advisory on how DOGE cuts are threatening food aid, among other risks. But by and large, the scale of Trump’s attacks on the federal government paints a scary picture. We at Revolving Door Project see our role as creating trackers and resources that will equip people and organizations to fight back as best as they can. We welcome support in populating these tools with examples—don’t hesitate to send tips and news flags our way: oversight@therevolvingdoorproject.org .
For now, we’re focusing on attacks on enforcement capacity at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
US Department of Agriculture (USDA)
WHAT HAPPENED: Though “public safety” roles were supposedly exempted from Trump’s federal hiring freeze, USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) is reportedly interrupting its normal hiring processes in response to the freeze.
WHAT’S AFFECTED: The safety of consuming food produced and circulated in the country.
WHO’S AFFECTED: People buying food (so, most of us)
MORE DETAILS: Trump’s approach to the USDA so far has been confusing. He issued an executive order on his first day in office freezing USDA funding, but rescinded it when a federal judge “temporarily halted its implementation.” As the Washington Post reports, “The White House repeatedly said the freeze of agriculture funding and other federal financial assistance would not affect benefits that go directly to individuals, such as farmers [...] But over the weekend, farmers reported that their funding remained frozen,” and that they weren’t receiving needed reimbursements. It’s a contradictory move, given that farmers as a group “voted overwhelmingly for Trump in the past three presidential elections.”
But it’s not just farmers’ bottom-lines that will be impacted. The FSIS, a USDA unit responsible for food safety inspections, is reportedly experiencing a hiring freeze, despite being told they would be exempt: “job offers are being rescinded and the hiring that is advancing is subject to intense scrutiny [...] An email sent by FSIS human resources staff to agency supervisors that was obtained by Government Executive said new hires set for orientation this week may be ‘on hold due to the hiring freeze.’ Internal employees starting new roles ‘may be affected as well,’ the email said. A subsequent email stated new employee orientation had been ‘put on hold.’ ”
The apparent FSIS hiring freeze is concerning, especially as food safety concerns have proliferated in recent months due to climate catastrophe-driven pandemics and corporate greed-driven pollution. For instance, in a northern California region where ~70% of the US’ leafy greens are produced, there was a disastrous lithium fire at a battery plant. Preliminary soil testing results from the CA Department of Toxic Substances Control reveal the presence of heavy metals at levels exceeding EPA-established risk levels, leading to concerns about contamination of the food supply. While the results are preliminary, and it won’t be possible to confirm if food is affected for some months, this example highlights the potentially wide-ranging impacts of decreased regulatory capacity at food safety units like FSIS.
(This situation also highlights the threat from politicizing the civil service–don’t consumers want independent civil servants to weigh in on food safety, rather than MAGA political hacks seeking to revolve into BigAg?)
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
WHAT HAPPENED: Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has invited “DOGE” into the Department of Transportation to “upgrade our aviation system”. The next segment of DOT likely to be in Elon Musk’s sights is his long-time adversary, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
WHAT’S AFFECTED: Nothing yet, but given Musk’s history of clashing with the NHTSA, it’s a matter of time.
WHO’S AFFECTED: Pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and anyone else sharing roads with Teslas and other cars featuring automation and self-driving features, which have already killed over 50 people, by one count, and injured many more.
MORE DETAILS: Tesla has been hounded by the NHTSA for safety violations, having had 15 recalls on over 5.1 million vehicles in 2024 alone. The car company has faced investigations by the regulator for improperly calling its driver assist function “Full Self Drive,” allowing drivers to play videogames on the large center console screen while operating the vehicle, developing a software option that directs the cars to roll through stop signs, and issues like losing power steering. Aside from OSHA, there is perhaps no agency that has proved to be such a thorn in the side of Musk.
NHTSA’s oversight of Tesla is far from unearned, as their automation software has been linked to numerous fatalities already— as the Washington Post reported, “The collisions from Tesla’s malfunctioning technology on its vehicles have led not only to deaths but also catastrophic injuries that have forever altered people’s lives.”
Further, accountability is likely to be scarce without the investigatory and litigative power of the NHTSA. “Attorneys representing people injured in Tesla crashes — or who represent surviving family members of those who died — say without NHTSA, the only other way to hold the car company accountable is through civil lawsuits.” These suits are less likely to succeed without NHTSA’s ability to investigate the specific malfunctions of Tesla technology, which is beyond the resources of civil litigants.
Gutting the NHTSA of staff and capacity could allow Tesla to face less oversight and have fewer costly and embarrassing recalls—likely an appealing prospect for Musk. If DOGE does make its way to the regulator, pedestrians, and drivers alike will be facing an even more dangerous landscape.
Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
WHAT HAPPENED: Secretary Scott Turner announced a halt to enforcement of HUD’s Equal Access Rule, a 2016 rule formally entitled “Equal Access in Accordance With an Individual’s Gender Identity in Community Planning and Development Programs,” which Turner’s HUD has taken to referring to as the “Gender Identity Rule.”
WHAT’S AFFECTED: An Obama-era rule designed to prevent discrimination of transgender people seeking access to single-sex housing shelters based on their gender identities. As Politico reported, the rule “directed HUD grantees to amend their policies to grant equal entry to individuals based on their self-identified gender identity without requiring documentation or asking intrusive questions.”
WHO’S AFFECTED: Transgender people experiencing unstable housing and seeking access to shelters.
MORE DETAILS: Turner, Trump’s pick to head HUD, is fresh off a role at JPI, a Dallas-based luxury development company. As my colleague Andrea Beaty wrote this week, JPI has close relationships to “the corporations that are exacerbating the housing crisis,” with RealPage, the real estate software company currently being sued for an “alleged rent-setting scheme and the millions of dollars it has potentially cost everyday Americans,” at the top of the list.
Given Turner’s revolver status, ties, and credentials, it’s likely this attack on equity in shelter access won’t be the only blow to equity in access to housing during his tenure.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
WHAT HAPPENED: Trump-appointed acting directors of CFPB ordered halts to enforcement and shut down headquarters for in-person work.
WHAT’S AFFECTED: Among other things, (1) enforcement of rules stopping large financial institutions from extracting excessive fees from and otherwise defrauding people and (2) enforcement of rules targeting discriminatory practices by these institutions.
WHO’S AFFECTED: People with credit cards and bank accounts; people affected by racist discrimination by financial institutions.
MORE DETAILS: As we highlighted this week, successive Trump-appointed acting directors of CFPB (Bessent and Vought) ordered stoppages of CFPB enforcement and supervision activity over big banks and financial institutions. In another Saturday night memo, Vought ordered the CFPB office closed for the week, telling employees to work remotely.
As our friend David Dayen at the Prospect astutely narrates, Bessent also attempted to cut off CFPB’s funding, mirroring a step taken by CFPB director Mick Mulvaney during Trump’s first term. He hit a hurdle there, because outgoing agency leadership had already drawn down funding from the Federal Reserve to support the agency through the end of fiscal year 2025.
CFPB was created in the wake of the 2008 mortgage crisis with the goal of stopping fraudulent activity and abuses by powerful financial institutions, which has made it a target of corporate leaders and their allies in Congress from the start. Stopping CFPB enforcement means stopping oversight of financial institutions with more than $10 billion in assets—it won’t affect oversight of small banks, which are handled by other financial regulators—tilting the scales to take the heat off the most influential (and most historically corrupt) financial actors.
Specifically, as Matt Stoller wrote this week, popular consumer protection measures like “rules against overdraft fees…a rule capping credit card late fees… oversight of debt collectors and payday lenders….[and] another rule put forward recently…that mortgage servicers can’t garner excessive fees when they foreclose” will no longer be enforced. Not to mention rules attempting to address systemic racial discrimination in financial and lending practices, which contributed to the predatory and disproportionate destruction of wealth in Black and brown communities during the mortgage crisis.
The results? A free-for-all on discriminatory and abusive financial practices.
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Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
RealPage Defender Jay Parsons Joins HUD Secretary’s Former Real Estate Company
Kyrsten Sinema Is The Latest Addition To Crypto’s Sellout Dream Team. Who Will Be Next?
Trump Administration Non-Adherence to Court Orders
Corruption Calendar Week Three: Musk’s Engineers Take Over
Trump’s Energy Czar Is All In on AI
Elon Musk shielded by ethics loophole as Trump ‘special government employee’
New DEA Chief’s Background Includes Surveillance Tech and Border Misinformation
Trump wants your attention — and the world's richest men can help him
Christopher Lewis, Jacob Plaza: The MAGA Think Tank Behind Linda McMahon’s Education Agenda
Palantir’s ‘revolving door’ with government spurs huge growth
Trump Is Running A Bulldozer Over Independent Federal Agencies
Say hello to salmonella, pseudomonas, bug parts, poisons, heavy metals, carcinogens, allergens, mislabeling, expired ingredients, adulteration, and let’s not forget mold. And we’re afraid of vaccines. Right..
Thank you for this. Fun Fact: the US has had the safest food supply in the world.