Trump Boots Democratic Members At Another Federal Regulator

President Donald Trump ousted the Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, the latest in a string of firings at agencies designed to be insulated from the White House.

“The president just illegally fired me,” wrote FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya in a post on X Tuesday, who was booted alongside Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter.

Bedoya added that he would be testifying Wednesday before the Colorado Joint House and Senate Judiciary Committees “and will have more to say then.”

In a statement, Slaughter said that her firing violated “the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent. Why? Because I have a voice. And he is afraid of what I’ll tell the American people.”

The FTC focuses on protecting consumers from deceptive business practices and promoting private-sector competition — a major plank of former President Joe Biden’s economic policy that sometimes aligned with now-Vice President JD Vance and other conservative populists.

It’s not clear if Bedoya or Slaughter, who recently clashed with the agency’s Trump-designated chair, Andrew Ferguson, plans to challenge his firing in court, but Bedoya urged his followers on X to “Fight back.”