FTC Commissioner Fired By Trump Speaks Out After Supreme Court Ruling: ‘Profoundly Disappointed’

Former Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter spoke out for the first time since the Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump had the authority to fire her without cause.

Slaughter joined MS NOW’s Jacob Soboroff on Saturday on his Connect show, where she discussed the Supreme Court ruling against her in their 6-3 decision. The ruling was one of a handful of recent decisions, some of which handed major wins to the president.

Trump fired Slaughter, a Democrat, in March 2025, saying her views were not consistent with the administration’s “priorities.” Critics blasted the firing, noting the FTC has long stood as an independent government organization.

In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: “the President must have the assistance of officers he can trust. Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work. Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.”

The ruling overturns the decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States from more than 90 years ago, a which determined the president could not remove members of independent agencies on policy grounds.

Slaughter told Soboroff she was “profoundly disappointed” by the Supreme Court’s decision and argued they are making Trump “entitled” to more power than “kings.”

She said:

I think the way I characterize it is that I was just profoundly disappointed. You read earlier from Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor’s dissent that pointed out that not even kings, against which our founding fathers revolted, had the kind of power that the Supreme Court has now said the president is entitled to. And I think that’s a really sad change in our fundamental structure of government, mostly for the American people, because the American People deserve a government that is fighting for them and not just for the powerful.

She added there could be serious ramifications in an FTC fully aligned with the president.

Slaughter added:

We are currently in litigation against almost every one of those people’s companies. And what will it mean if the president says to the FTC commissioners, I want you to make this case go away because this company is helping to build my ballroom or donated to my inauguration, in the past, what it would mean would be nothing because the way the FTC was structured, commissioners were obligated to follow the law, follow the facts, follow their oath, which is to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, and not follow out of blind loyalty to the president, and they couldn’t be fired for failure to follow in a legal order. And now they can be.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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