Republicans Aren’t Interested In Trump’s Idea To Cap Credit Card Interest Rates

WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill don’t like President Donald Trump’s proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, shooting down the latest attempt by the president to lean into populist economic policy ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), typically an unquestioning defender of every Trump proposal, on Tuesday said Trump was just “thinking out loud” with the idea.

“You’ve got to be very careful if you go forward,” said Johnson. “If you do that, then the credit card companies, the negative secondary effect is that they would just stop lending money and maybe they cap what people are able to borrow at a very low amount.”

Trump first pitched rate caps in a Truth Social post last week saying people were getting “ripped off” by credit card interest rates as high as 20 or 30%. He pushed the idea again on Monday, suggesting he could unilaterally impose a cap starting this month, even though it would require an act of Congress — and that seems unlikely given Republicans’ reliance both on financial industry donations and traditional pro-bank leanings.

“I believe in free market competition, capitalism,” Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, told HuffPost. “I don’t believe in caps.”

Trump called progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a frequent target of his invective, on Monday to discuss capping credit card interest rates. Warren has long advocated for legislation doing so, even before Trump proposed it during the 2024 presidential campaign. The call came shortly after Warren delivered a speech at the National Press Club in D.C. urging her party to adopt a bolder and more populist message ahead of the 2026 midterm election.

Warren told HuffPost the president was “perfectly pleasant” on the call, but she seemed skeptical of his intention to follow through on the matter.

“An entire year went by, and he never once did anything to put caps in place to lower interest rates,” Warren said Tuesday. “If he really wants to make that change, then now is the time.”

Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) reintroduced their bill that would crack down on credit card “swipe fees” Tuesday. Trump also endorsed the measure, calling the fees a “rip-off.” The bill is the latest in decadeslong tug-of-war between retailers and Wall Street over the interchange fees retailers pay banks when customers pay with credit cards.

“Thank you, President Trump, for your support!” Marshall responded in a social media post. “Big Banks rake in billions from credit card swipe fees — while hardworking Americans pay the price. Let’s end these fees and save families thousands.”

Swipe fees aren’t the same thing as credit card interest rates, however, which the Federal Reserve has estimated were averaging above 20% in recent years — a sharp increase from previous decades.

Despite the recent emphasis on “affordability” by Trump and members of both parties, Republicans on Capitol Hill are skeptical of legislation to clamp down on credit card interest rates.

“I fear that the net effect would be to reduce the availability of credit to those people who need it the most,” Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), another member of the banking committee, told HuffPost. “Credit card interest rates, like many interest rates, are calculated not just on what the going financial interest rates are, but your ability to repay those kind of things, and [the proposed cap] kind of ignores those fundamental issues.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters similarly on Tuesday: “I think that would probably deprive an awful lot of people of access to credit around the country. Credit cards would probably become debit cards. So yeah, I mean, that’s not something I’m out there advocating for, let’s put it that way.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said she didn’t believe Trump was even serious about the idea.

“This administration has not demonstrated an earnestness that they do what they say and say what they do,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters. “Ever since they have been sworn in, they have done everything but bring down costs.”

Speaker Johnson praised the president for proposing ideas that Republicans would never suggest on their own.

“What I love about this president is he’s willing to think outside the box and propose ideas for us to work through to see if it will actually achieve the desired objective, and that’s what we’re in the process of doing every day around here,” Johnson said. “So again, I wouldn’t get too spun up about, you know, ideas that are out of the box that are proposed or suggested.”