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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pushed back on a proposal from President Donald Trump to cap the interest that credit card companies can charge borrowers.
“I talked with him about it briefly yesterday,” Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday. “The president is the ideas guy, and he’s laser-focused on the same thing that we are. And that is reducing the cost of living.”
“One of the things that the president probably had not thought through is the negative secondary effect; they would just stop lending money and maybe they cap what people are able to borrow at a very low amount,” Johnson said, referring to how lenders might react to such a law.
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Trump floated capping credit card interest rates at 10% for one year over the weekend, arguing that it would help Americans catch up on their debt.
“I want a cap on credit card interest rates, because some of them are almost 30%,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “And the people don’t know they’re paying 30%. No way. They’ve really abused the public. I’m not going to let it happen.”
Johnson said such a move would require congressional authority to implement the change.
Initial assessments of the proposal have sparked alarm among experts at the Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC), an organization of community banks, payment card networks and credit unions that support increased access to online payments.
Richard Hunt, executive chairman of EPC, told reporters that an analysis of the cap found that between 82% and 88% of credit card holders could see their card eliminated or their credit limit drastically reduced.
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“I understand the president is trying to make sure Americans can afford to make ends meet, and we support that. But this study is to show them the Draconian effects that would happen to his voters and to the Senate and House members’ constituents. This is serious stuff,” Hunt said.
Johnson said that he had spoken about similar concerns with House lawmakers.
“Since I had the conversation with him, I’ve talked to a number of colleagues about that and what that would mean. And, you know, are there unintended consequences of that? It’s a complicated area,” Johnson said.
“You have to be very careful if you go forward in zeal to bring down costs. You don’t want to have negative secondary effects.”
Johnson framed Trump’s idea on the interest rate cap as demonstrative that the administration would consider every idea on the table to advance affordability.
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“It comes from a sincere place in his heart. And 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,” Johnson said.
“And that’s what we’re in the process of doing every day around here.”
Fox News Digital’s Eric Revell contributed to this report.
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