Former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) in an interview Sunday criticized President Trump Donald John TrumpBarr criticizes DOJ in speech declaring all agency power 'is invested in the attorney general' Military leaders asked about using heat ray on protesters outside White House: report Powell warns failure to reach COVID-19 deal could 'scar and damage' economy MORE for his plans to target his namesake Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

"Much of that law is popular," Frank said during an interview with John Catsimatidis that aired on New York's AM 970. "The executive order that the president offered with a lot of hype has no specifics. In fact, it doesn't do anything."

Trump on Friday signed a pair of executive orders aimed at lightening the regulatory load on financial institutions. While the orders are somewhat limited in scale, they indicate that the Trump's administration plans to make an overhaul of Wall Street rules a priority.

Dodd–Frank, which was signed into law by President Obama in 2010 and partially named after the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was designed to reform the financial regulatory process by adding a set of new market oversight mechanisms.

ADVERTISEMENT

“We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine, who have nice businesses who can’t borrow money," Trump said on Friday morning before signing an executive order on the issue.

"They just can’t get any money because the banks just won’t let them borrow, because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank."

Frank pushed back on Sunday.

"There are no restrictions on lending in this bill. There are restrictions on the manipulation of derivatives of complex financial instruments like the ones AIG used that got people into serious trouble," he explained.

"What I'm afraid of is that we are going to get back to the period when large financial institutions, to make some short-term money, get themselves into situations where they won't be able to pay off their debt and we will get back into a crisis," the former lawmaker warned.

Frank also predicted that since Trump's team cannot reform Dodd-Frank by executive order it will instead choose to not enforce the law.

"I do not think he's going to get 60 senators to vote to get rid of all this. So what you then have, I believe, is he's going to appoint people who won't enforce the law," he said.

Frank also expressed doubt that Democrats and Republicans will be able to work together in the future, noting that Trump has become "much more combative" after winning the election.



"I would have hoped that, but to be honest the president has been doing very little to make that happen," he said.



"But Donald Trump has been much more combative afterwards than before ... so no, I do not see that happening. I do not see, on the part of the president any effort to conciliate and to find common ground."