'Great idea': Bernie Sanders takes Trump up on his own plan
A possible team-up between President-elect Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) could be brewing.
The progressive senator on Monday again called on the incoming president to join forces with him and others in Congress to cap soaring credit card interest rates.
Sanders has long touted the need for a crackdown on high-interest borrowing rates as a way of helping consumers saddled with debt, and with Trump weeks away from returning to the White House he might have a partner to do just that.
“During the recent campaign Donald Trump proposed a 10% cap on credit card interest rates,” Sanders wrote Monday on X. “Great idea. Let’s see if he supports the legislation that I will introduce to do just that.”
Trump on the campaign trail floated the idea of placing a temporary cap of 10% on credit card interest rates to allow consumers to "catch up" on their debt, declaring that "we have no choice" but to do it, according to media reports.
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But any such interest-rate cap would have “a significant impact” on bank and credit card companies, Matt Schulz, the chief credit analyst at LendingTree, told Business Insider.
"It's always important to remember that the banks have lots of buttons to push, lots of levers to pull to regain revenue," Schulz told the publication, adding that potential impacts include credit being restricted and rewards being reduced.
Still, others were skeptical that Trump is all in on the idea.
Chi Chi Wu, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, expressed doubt to Business Insider about the incoming president's sincerity about a national interest-rate cap, especially as ally Elon Musk posted “Delete CFPB," a reference to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a few weeks ago on X.
"I question the sincerity of the Trump team's willingness to protect consumers when one of their key people, Elon Musk, has called for the abolishing of the most important agency protecting consumers' wallets," she told the outlet.