Career staff of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs work in the New Executive Office Building.

OIRA — the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — is an obscure, but powerful federal office around the corner from the White House. President Trump has decided that it should get even more powerful.

For the last 45 years, OIRA has overseen most federal agencies by reviewing proposed regulations to make sure they agree with the President's policies and don't conflict with the work of other agencies. But one set of federal agencies has always been exempt from this review process — independent federal agencies like the SEC, FTC, FCC, and Federal Reserve. Until now.

According to a new executive order, those independent agencies are about to get a lot less independent. We take a look at what this change could mean for financial markets...and the future of American democracy.

This episode was produced by James Sneed and Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Music: Universal Music Production - "Tanga," "The Jump Back," and "Kumbatia."

Clarification note April 17, 2025

A previous version of this episode incorrectly said that an appeals court had ruled that the firing of a Democrat appointee to the National Labor Relations Board was illegal. A lower court had previously ruled that the firing was illegal. The appeals court rejected a Trump administration request for a stay on that ruling, but did not rule on the legality of the firing.