This is what Trump does. He will just spurt out all sorts of populist economic policy proposals and then do nothing. He wants the kudos without actually doing the work. And then they'll play the good cop, bad cop. Trump wants to do it, but oh no, I can't do it because of the Republicans who are [00:00:18] funded by the financial services industry. You're trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, he does something. You say it's wrong. He doesn't do anything. You say it's wrong. You're creating an environment in which he can't do anything. - That's not going to upset you. - I think that's the plan. I'm sick of politicians. [00:00:34] Who do nothing for us, expecting credit from the American people for simply proposing something without real intention in getting it done. I think she's the wrong one to pick this fight with, because. I'm simply. [00:00:50] I absolutely would give Trump credit if he followed through on some of the policies he claims to want to accomplish, and one of those policies happens to be capping credit card interest rates to 10%, by the way, for one year. [00:01:05] That was his proposal just for one year, which isn't. It's not a solution to the very real problem we have with the loan sharks that have run amok in this country. Now, look, I think 10% is plenty to charge someone in interest. [00:01:23] And in a bit, I'll get to the details on how much credit card companies on average are charging an interest rates. But before we get to that, let me give you some more details about the Trump proposal. So Trump didn't just recently propose capping credit card interest rates. [00:01:38] He actually ran on it. It was part of his campaign. But like many of his other economic populist campaign promises, the policy just kind of fell by the wayside until all of a sudden he brought it up again. [00:01:53] Now, it might have something to do with the fact that last week, Senator Bernie Sanders called Trump out for not fulfilling this one specific campaign promise, he wrote. Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and stop Wall Street [00:02:08] from getting away with murder. Instead, he deregulated big banks, charging up to 30% interest on credit cards. The result? Last year, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon made $770 million. [00:02:24] Unacceptable. Like, how much money do you need, really? How much money do you need? How many lives are you willing to ruin just so you can make another $770 million? Jamie Dimon has more money than he could possibly spend before he croaks. [00:02:40] Anyway, that same day, Trump actually wrote on Truth Social we will no longer let the American public be ripped off by credit card companies that are charging interest rates of 20% to 30%, and even more, which festered unimpeded during the Sleepy [00:02:59] Joe Biden administration. Affordability. Okay. And then he says, effective January 20th of this year, I am calling for a one year cap on credit card interest rates of 10%. [00:03:15] Okay. Number one, why one year? Like, is usury bad only for one year? And then after that, the badness expires. Like, what are we talking about? Like, what is this? But okay, whatever. I'll take it. It's something. It's it's at least something, especially as we're dealing with record [00:03:32] consumer debt in this country. But you can't just pass this type of, order through an executive order. You would need to pass a bill, you know, legislation. You'd need Congress for that. And he knows that. [00:03:47] He knows that he's not stupid. So, what does Congress think about this? Well, this has led to a debate. Is Trump setting an interest rate cap to please his base, or is he doing this to to cozy up to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren? [00:04:06] And I think, you know, where I stand on it. But if you don't, here's what I had to say about it on CNN last night. He wants cookies from the people who have turned on him, because he did not fulfill his campaign promises and has led to absolute chaos on our streets instead. Yeah, but he's not interested in placating Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth. [00:04:24] No, he's interested in placating his own base, which has turned on 60 votes in the Senate for a lot of the financial bills that are coming down the pike. So I think the really out of the box thing is to go and ally himself with a handful of Republicans. Well, yeah, but I'm saying to go outside of the base and take the populist wing [00:04:40] of the Democratic Party, which is also the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, and maybe make some concessions there. That could be what he's doing because of just the he's not doing that. Come on. He's he's definitely aware of the. I really need people to stop insulting my intelligence. Like stop making things up. [00:04:58] He does not give a damn about pleasing Democratic voters. Are you kidding me right now? I mean, as he's engaging in unpopular foreign entanglements that his base is furious about. Yeah, he's trying to find a way to get back into their good graces [00:05:14] by pretending like he wants to accomplish some economic populist policies. But again, you would need to do that through Congress. And I think we have a sense of what the Republicans in Congress think. Let's, start off with House speaker Mike Johnson. [00:05:32] I talked with him about it briefly yesterday. And he is the president is the ideas guy. And what he's what he's doggedly determined to do and laser focused upon doing is the same thing that we are. And that is reducing the cost of living, bringing down prices for the American people. [00:05:47] And he's looking at every idea under the sun. To do that, you would need legislation to do something like that, and we'd have a lot of work to build consensus around it. But you got to be very careful if you go forward in that. In the in our zeal to bring down costs. You don't want to have negative secondary effects of that. [00:06:03] So, for example, one of the things that that the president probably had not thought through and others at first glance, it sounds great. We should bring down interest rates to 10%. It would help everybody, all borrowers. There's a lot of Americans who have a lot of credit card debt. [00:06:18] But then you know what some of the experts have said is, well, but the problem is, if you if you do that, then the credit card companies, the negative secondary effect is that is that they will just stop lending money. And maybe they they cap what people are able to borrow at a very low amount. [00:06:36] No, no, that's not the issue. First of all, the president is the ideas guy. You're you're congressional leadership. Back in the day when Congress actually was worth something and actually did something, that's where the ideas came from. You know, they would do things like write bills and pass laws. [00:06:54] They would do more than just fundraise off corporate interests and bloviate about nonsense culture war issues that they could care less, couldn't care less about God. Mike Johnson is such a pathetic dweeb, especially with that just sick lie like, oh no, [00:07:10] if we if we cap credit card interest rates at 10% for one year, it's going to, oh, they're not going to loan out any money. No. You know what's going to happen. They might they might take away some of the credit card rewards. Great. Take my rewards, I don't care. [00:07:27] Okay, stop loan sharking. Stop taking advantage of my fellow Americans. That's way more important to me than freaking airline miles. Don't forget noble mobile. Saving you a ton of money. So a lot of people are signing up now and beginning to realize what the hell, why am [00:07:43] I paying so much to Verizon and AT&T? So your bills only $50 a month, but it can actually be less because they give you money back if you don't use your data. So if you're paying more than $50, there's no reason to not switch. It's crazy not to switch because same phone, same number, same contacts. [00:07:58] Literally nothing changes. Titcomb. Titcomb. All right, we'll be right back. And then, you know, in the Senate, you have Thune. Useless, worthless. Should be run out of town. Should not be in leadership at all, he says. [00:08:15] I think that would probably deprive an awful lot of people of access to credit cards around the country. Credit cards would probably become debit cards. What? That's not something I'm out there advocating for. Let's put it that way. He thinks you're stupid. [00:08:30] That's what. That's what that communicated to me. Okay, but let's look at the data. What would actually happen. And remember, we're literally just talking about a one year cap on credit card interest rates. According to a report from Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, [00:08:46] the profit margins of most credit card companies could likely weather a 10% cap on credit card interest rates, but they would reduce rewards for borrowers by as much as $27 billion. Great. Sign me up. Take my rewards, I don't care. [00:09:03] I know that there's probably some greedy ass Americans out there who are like, oh no, my airline. Miles, you're a bad person, okay? Your rewards are funded by people who are dealing with this insane interest rate environment. [00:09:19] And let me give you the details on that real quick. So let's go to graphic eight. In the last three months of 2025, rates hit 21% on average, per data from the Federal Reserve. That's up from around 15% before the pandemic. I can't believe it was 15%. How did the credit card companies survive? [00:09:36] Wow. The share of cardholders making only the minimum payment is at its highest since 2015 because Americans are broke. And that's according to data released by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in December, which has been gutted by the Trump administration. [00:09:53] I'm surprised they're able to put out reports. And card users were assessed $160 billion in interest in 2024, and that's up from $105 billion in 2022. Let's look at this fun graph. Let's look at this fun graph so you can visualize what interest rates look like. [00:10:11] So as you can see interest rates are now up to 21%. They weren't always at 21%. I mean, in fact, if you look at what the rate was in the early aughts, it was much lower. Did those credit card companies go out of business? They didn't, did they? [00:10:26] Were they Were they still giving out rewards? They did, didn't they? These members of Congress think you're stupid. Don't let them insult your intelligence. Now, there are some Republicans who are in favor of capping the interest rates. [00:10:43] Unfortunately, not enough of them are. But I do want to give them a shout out. You have Josh Hawley who says this is a fantastic idea. Can't wait to vote for this. Well, Josh, you're not going to get the opportunity. Sorry. Your Republican colleagues like that, there are loan sharks [00:10:58] taking advantage of Americans. Representative Anna Paulina Luna, had also previously teamed up with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to cap interest rates at 10%. But unfortunately, that went nowhere. So it's sad when, I can literally only name two Republicans in Congress [00:11:20] who are in favor of keeping interest rates at 10% for one year. But here we are. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.