Meet Trump’s Favorite “Woke” Payday Lender

The Trump administration wages a ruthless war on “wokeness” when it means gutting social programs. But when it means suing a predatory firm that acts woke while ripping working-class Americans off, Trump suddenly loses interest.

President Trump Holds Reception Honoring Black History Month In The East Room Of The White House

President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a reception honoring Black History Month at the White House on February 20, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)


As of yesterday, Russell Vought had tweeted exactly fifteen times since being confirmed as Donald Trump’s director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on February 6, including twice about balancing the federal budget, twice about Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) agency, and six times about the evils of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). One of those six times was on Sunday, when Vought celebrated that his dismantling of the Wall Street watchdog had rescued an obscure company from dire straits.

“Shockingly, the CFPB tried to destroy this company, SoLo, which incurred millions in legal fees and had to lay off 30 percent of its workforce,” Vought tweeted. “It was wrong and we dismissed the case.”

As many Twitter/X users rushed to point out, the company Vought was lauding as an “innovative solution” for helping “working-class Americans with limited means” deal with large, unexpected costs was, in reality, little more than a scandal-plagued payday lender. At first glance, it seems like a vintage move from Vought’s playbook: let corporate greed run riot, cynically tell people that the regulations holding predatory firms in check that you just eliminated were “woke and weaponized,” and assume Americans will be gullible enough to swallow this.

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