The Dictatorship
Trump pushes a 1-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates. Banks balk
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump’s second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump’s proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives,” the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers’ hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
“A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels,” said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry’s impact of Trump’s proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer’s research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long.”
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump’s post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
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Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most Americans still think their taxes are too high, according to recent polls, even after last year’s tax law fulfilled several of President Donald Trump’s tax-related campaign promises.
In fact, a new Fox News poll indicates people are more upset about taxes than they were last year. The findings from the survey, which was conducted in late March, are another sign that Americans are on edge about their personal finances as the U.S. experiences a spike in inflation and sluggish economic growth. Other polling finds that frustration goes beyond personal tax obligations, with many believing that wealthy people and corporations are not paying their fair share, while others worry about government waste.
The surveys come after Trump and Republicans passed a massive tax and spending cut bill last year. The legislation enacted a range of tax breaks, including a boosted child tax credit and new tax deductions for tips and overtime. Tax refunds are up this seasonand many households are expected to see more income from the Republicans’ tax legislation, but the Congressional Budget Office estimated it will ultimately give the largest benefits to the richest Americans.
Republicans have touted the law as evidence that they are making life more affordable for working families. But polling shows that many Americans may not be feeling the benefits, especially as their tax refunds get eaten up by higher prices.
Most say taxes are too high
About 7 in 10 registered voters say the taxes they pay are “too high,” according to the Fox News poll. That’s up from about 6 in 10 last year. The poll shows heightened concern among very liberal voters and Democratic men, but there has also been a sizable increase among groups that Republicans want to court ahead of the midterm elections, such as moderates, rural voters and white voters without a college degree.
Discontent about taxes has been rising for the past few years. Recent polling from Gallupconducted in March, found about 6 in 10 U.S. adults say the amount of federal income tax they have to pay is “too high,” a finding that’s been largely consistent in the annual poll since 2023. That’s approaching the level of unhappiness found in Gallup’s polling from the 1980s through the 1990s, before President George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.
Now, about half of Democrats and about 6 in 10 Republicans say their federal income taxes are too high. Republicans tend to view their tax bill more negatively than Democrats, but Gallup’s polling shows that this gap often shrinks when a Republican is president.
Many believe the rich aren’t paying enough in taxes
Most Americans are troubled by the belief that some wealthy people and corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in January. About 6 in 10 Americans said each of those notions bothers them “a lot,” a measure that is largely unchanged in recent years.
By contrast, only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults in that poll said the amount they personally pay in taxes bothers them a lot.
About 8 in 10 Democrats are bothered “a lot” by the feeling that some corporations and rich people aren’t paying their fair share, the Pew survey found, compared to about 4 in 10 Republicans. Government spending is a bigger issue for Republicans, according to the Fox News poll, which found that 75% of registered voters — and a similar share of Republican voters — say “almost all” or “a great deal” of government funding is wasteful and inefficient.
That points to a perception problem for many Americans. Even if their own tax bill is manageable, the idea that the wealthy are underpaying — or that the government is wasting their dollars — bothers many. About half of Americans, 49%, in the Gallup poll say the income tax they will pay this year is “not fair,” which is in line with the record high from 2023.
Broad unhappiness with Trump’s tax approach
Americans’ tax frustration was rising before Trump re-entered the White House, but it’s still a problem for the president’s party — especially if Americans are not feeling the relief that he promised.
The Fox News poll found that about 6 in 10 registered voters, 64%, say they disapprove of how Trump is handling taxes, up from 53% last April. Disapproval has risen most sharply among independents, but also among Democrats and Republicans.
This aligns with a broader feeling that Trump isn’t doing enough to address inflation. Most Americans said Trump had hurt the cost of living “a lot” or “a little” in his second term, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in January. Roughly 9 in 10 Democrats and about 6 in 10 independents said Trump has had a negative impact on the cost of living.
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This story has been updated to correct that less than half of Republicans, 43%, said Trump has helped the cost of living, while 33% said he hasn’t made a difference and only 23% said he has hurt it.
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The Fox News poll was conducted among 1,001 registered voters from March 20-23. The Gallup poll was conducted among 1,000 U.S. adults from March 2-18. The Pew Research Center poll was conducted among 8,512 U.S. adults from Jan. 20-26. The AP-NORC Poll was conducted among 1,203 U.S. adults from Jan 8-11.
The Dictatorship
Democrats to confront Trump budget director Russ Vought about his ‘stone cold silence’
When White House budget director Russell Vought appears before lawmakers on Wednesday, he will almost certainly face questions about a ballooning Pentagon budgeta special war-funding request and an extended Homeland Security shutdown. But Democrats also plan to press him on an issue closer to the Capitol: why he has spent months dodging their questions altogether.
Vought is set to testify Wednesday before the House Budget Committee and again before the Senate’s budget panel on Thursday. It’s a long-awaited chance for Democrats eager to question him on several fronts — including the cost of the Iran war, cuts to health care spending, a demoralized federal workforce and what the government’s own watchdog has described as the illegal impoundment of federal funds.
Lawmakers also have a growing to-do list that involves Vought, including a war supplemental for President Donald Trump’s military campaign in Iran and a reconciliation bill that would fund immigration enforcement agencies. Congress is also supposed to adopt a budget, though that may slip after the president’s budget was weeks late and omitted any information about projected federal debts and deficits.
But Democrats see Vought as “missing and reclusive,” ignoring their questions for months, the Budget Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, told MS NOW. Vought didn’t testify before the committee last year, a break with tradition. And written questions to Vought have been met with “stone cold silence,” Boyle said.
In JanuaryHouse Democrats pressed Vought for answers on the administration’s health care plans, its compliance with congressionally approved funding laws, its attempt to withhold nutrition aid during last year’s government shutdown, and plans for federal layoffs.
“He sent us not one word in response,” Boyle said. “And in doing so, it shows their contempt for the United States Congress, and it shows their contempt for our constitutional system.”
Boyle told MS NOW he plans to introduce legislation to legally require Office of Management and Budget directors to testify before the House Budget Committee, after Vought didn’t do so last year. He also said he aims to require that the OMB director respond to members of the committee.
Democrats didn’t hear back from Vought about testifying to the committee until March, when Boyle displayed a picture of Vought as a missing child on a milk carton. That prompted Vought to respond on X that, “I am coming to testify on April 15. You should get up to speed.”
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, had previously assured reporters that Vought would testify in 2026, but Boyle said Democrats hadn’t gotten confirmation until the milk carton incident.
“That’s what shamed him into it,” Boyle said of Vought.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee and a member of the Budget Committee, also said Vought had not been responsive to questions from Democratic members of the Senate, including on the cost of the Iran war. She said she’d press Vought at Thursday’s hearing on whether he would distribute funds appropriated by Congress.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he’d ask Vought questions “around this ‘traumatizing the federal workforce’ stuff,” and whether DOGE wasted money by firing employees who needed to be rehired later. And Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said he’d ask Vought “how he’s not a corrupt stooge of the fossil fuel industry.”
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, say they haven’t been pressing Vought hard for answers. For example, the missing debt and deficit data in the budget proposal — which Maya MacGuineas, president of the fiscally conservative Committee for a Responsible Budget called “an astonishing lack of information — hasn’t prompted pushback from conservative lawmakers.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he was unbothered by Vought’s decision to leave out the debt data in the president’s budget request.
“Nobody looks at it anyway,” Scott told MS NOW. “It’s just for you guys to write something.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said he’d ask Vought “to give a great update on the progress that we’ve made” in reducing the deficit. When asked about the missing debt and deficit information, Moreno said he didn’t know about it.
“I haven’t had a chance to see the whole thing, to be honest with you, so I’ve got to see what that’s all about,” Moreno told MS NOW.
In prepared remarks obtained by PunchbowlVought reportedly plans to say that, “when President Trump took office, the nation was facing financial catastrophe under the failed leadership of the Biden Administration and decades of status quo spending strangling our nation.”
But federal spending, according to the Treasury Departmenthas increased under Trump. And the federal deficit is going up. (The federal deficit was $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025 and is projected to be $1.9 trillion in fiscal 2026according to the Congressional Budget Office.)
Republicans have also been patient with the lack of information about the cost of the Iran war.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday he still hasn’t seen a request and doesn’t know how much it will cost.
“The only thing I think I’ve seen is what you guys report,” Thune told reporters.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters he’d want to scour the funding request’s details before he decides if he’ll support it.
But when pressed whether the administration had answered his questions on the topic, Johnson made it clear he hadn’t focused on those details yet.
“Haven’t really asked,” he said.
Jack Fitzpatrick covers Congress for MS NOW. He previously reported for Bloomberg Government, Morning Consult and National Journal. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State University.
The Dictatorship
Justice Department moves to erase Jan. 6 convictions of Oath Keepers, Proud Boys’ leaders
The Justice Department requested on Tuesday for a federal appeals court to erase the seditious conspiracy convictions of a group of leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys — two right-wing extremist groups who were involved in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The request asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the individuals’ convictions, effectively erasing their guilty verdicts, and to dismiss the charges with prejudice. A dismissal with prejudice prevents the government from bringing the cases again.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump had already either pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of most of the roughly 1,500 people charged in connection with the 2021 attack on the Capitol after Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. While most of the defendants received pardons, wiping their convictions, Trump only commuted the sentences of 14 high-profile defendants to time served, which upheld their convictions while allowing them to leave prison.
The request by the Justice Department would go a step further and erase all the convictions for the extremist group leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodeswho didn’t receive pardons last January.
Only 12 of those defendants were referenced in the Justice Department’s request on Tuesday. Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 yearsin prison, is among those who would benefit.
“The government’s motion to vacate in this case is consistent with its practice of moving the Supreme Court to vacate convictions in cases where the government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice — motions that the Supreme Court routinely grants,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
Trump himself faces criminal a series of civil lawsuits related to his incitement of the Jan. 6 attack. A federal judge earlier this month rejected his efforts to end the suits ahead of his trial, which has not yet been scheduled.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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