The two Democrats who were fired from the five-person Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday say that their removal from the panel will make it easier for President Donald Trump to reduce pressure on the Big Tech companies whose leaders support him.

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya were fired after work Tuesday, they told NBC News in separate interviews. Both said they viewed the firings as illegal, citing the 1935 Supreme Court ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States and said they plan to sue to be reinstated.

The White House did not respond to an emailed question about the commissioners’ warnings, but spokesperson Taylor Rogers claimed Trump has the legal right to fire them.

”President Trump has the lawful authority to manage personnel within the executive branch. President Trump will continue to rid the federal government of bad actors unaligned with his common sense agenda the American people decisively voted for,” Rogers said in an emailed statement.

The FTC, formed in 1914 to combat U.S. monopolies, rests in the executive branch but is historically independent from the presidency. It’s traditionally staffed with five members, three from the president’s party and two from the opposition, making its investigations bipartisan, though rulings often fall along party lines. It’s unclear who will fill the newly empty seats, if anyone.

The fired commissioners told NBC News that while they had not been in a position to outvote their three Republican colleagues, they were now unable to alert the public if the Trump administration pushes the commission to go easy on Big Tech companies that it aggressively went after under Joe Biden’s presidency, they said. 

“A lot of what commissioners can do is blow the whistle,” Bedoya said.

“What we can do as members of the opposition party and the minority party is provide accountability and transparency to that decision-making in the worst-case scenario,” Slaughter said. “When the FTC works at its best is when you develop bipartisan consensus around policies.”

Slaughter and Bedoya both said they view their firing as a way for Trump to halt the FTC’s actions against Big Tech, whose leaders have largely allied with him in recent months.

“The FTC is currently in active litigation against most of the companies whose CEOs flanked the president at his inauguration,” Slaughter said.

Trump’s inauguration welcomed many of the country’s top tech titans, including Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and X owner Elon Musk, who now heads up the controversial cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency. While Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did not attend, he has publicly wished Trump well and Microsoft donated $1 million to the inauguration. Google, Meta and Amazon all also gave to the fund, and Musk gave over $20 million to Trump’s campaign. 

In the Biden administration, Bedoya and Slaughter took legal actions, launched investigations and proposed new rules against some of the country’s largest tech companies, including Amazon, Google, Meta Microsoft and X, previously known as Twitter.

Slaughter said that her firing hampered the FTC’s ability to conduct its job of protecting fair business practices.

“What I care about is not my particular job. What I care about is protecting market stability and protecting honest businesses who want to get ahead by providing good products and services and prices, not by lying and cheating,” she said.

Bedoya said he believed that the FTC’s chair, Andrew Ferguson, a Republican, wants to maintain legal pressure against big tech companies, but fears that Trump may try to pressure him.

“My friend Chairman Ferguson has been clear he wants to continue to bring the heat to Big Tech. I have respect for him for that. But what’s this guy going to do if he gets that call from the White House?” Bedoya said.

“Let’s say there’s a merger, and one of the president’s donors has a stake in that merger. In a world where the president can fire anyone at any time there’s going to be a call from the White House to the FTC saying, you know, ‘Hey, I like this merger. This one’s a good one. Why don’t you let this one go through?’” he said.

The FTC did not respond to a request for comment, but Ferguson did post to X that he agrees with the White House’s stance that Trump has the legal authority to fire his FTC colleagues.

“President Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch and is vested with all of the executive power in our government. I have no doubts about his constitutional authority to remove Commissioners, which is necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government. The Federal Trade Commission will continue its tireless work to protect consumers, lower prices, and police anticompetitive behavior,” he said.

“I wish Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya well, and I thank them for their service,” Ferguson wrote.

Both Bedoya and Slaughter were quick to publicly protest the firings. 

In an appearance on CNBC Wednesday, Slaughter warned that the firings could have a chilling effect even on Republican commissioners.

“If you are afraid that you are going to get fired for not doing a favor for the president’s political donors, that is a real problem.” 

Bedoya has been active on social media, posting a statement Tuesday and videos Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. In the Wednesday video, Bedoya touted his work tackling Big Tech companies and asked viewers to consider why the White House would want him gone.

“Who does this move help? Does it help you, or does it help the billionaires who have sent hundreds of millions of dollars into the president’s pockets?” he said. “That is the question to ask right now.”