Carlos Barria/Reuters
President Donald Trump on Friday named his own interim leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau just hours after the agency’s outgoing director picked a different person to take on the role, triggering an apparent showdown. Outgoing director Richard Cordray—an Obama appointee—initially said Leandra English, the agency’s new deputy director, should serve as acting director until a permanent leader is chosen. Hours later, Trump appeared to override the decision, however, naming Mick Mulvaney, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, as the interim leader. White House officials defended Trump’s move on Saturday, saying the Justice Department was consulted before naming Mulvaney to lead the agency. But the move has caused concerns among Democratic lawmakers who fear Mulvaney, an outspoken critic of the CFPB, will overhaul the agency. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the architects of the consumer agency, disputed Trump’s pick and said Dodd-Frank financial reform law stipulates that the agency’s deputy director should take over the agency’s leadership in case of a vacancy. Warren insisted that “Leandra English is the Acting Director under the Dodd-Frank Act,” saying Trump can’t “override that.”