Donald Trump campaigned as the deregulation candidate.

This week, as president, he took more action to rein in financial watchdogs by issuing an executive order, taking them under his control.

This is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the FT News Briefing, where we talk about all the things happening in U.S. politics.

I'm your host, Mark Filipino, and this week we're asking, what does Trump's grip on regulators mean for the business community?

Here with me to discuss is Bookmasters, the FT's new U.S. managing editor.

Hi, Brooke.

Hi.

And we've also got Stefania Palma here with me in the D.C.

studio. She's the F.T.'s legal and enforcement correspondent. Hey, Stefania. Hi, Mark.

All right, Stefania. So let's start with what happened this week. What was in the executive order that Trump issued on Tuesday?

So Trump essentially signed an executive order that, quote, reigns in independent agencies.

Some would argue that is a bit of an oxymoron, given that these agencies are, in fact, meant to be

independent.

But in practical terms, Trump essentially said the White House would be establishing performance standards for

the federal agencies that they now must consult with the White House on things like their

priorities or sort of broader strategic plans. The order made a point of sort of highlighting that the Federal Reserve's monetary policy

functions would not be captured by this new measure.

That essentially means that presumably its supervisory functions would be captured by this.

But the key kind of regulators is that this applies to are things like the

Securities and Exchange Commission, which is obviously sort of a top Wall Street watchdog, as well as

the Federal Trade Commission, which is a key antitrust regulator. Yeah, and also budgets will be

adjusted, which kind of goes hand in hand with what's going on at the Department of Government Efficiency with Elon Musk.

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