President Donald Trump knows he’s aligning himself with the progressive left when it comes to credit cards.
During an interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen in Davos on Wednesday, Trump acknowledged that his call for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates isn’t a standard conservative policy.
In fact, he joked that it’s something that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, might have come up with.
“I know it’s sort of like… it sounds like the mayor of New York maybe came up with that,” Trump said with a laugh.
Following Mamdani’s election in November, the two met in the Oval Office and appeared to share some common ground in remarks to the press afterwards.
“I’m conservative, but I think I’m common sense, you know?” Trump said on Wednesday. “People say, ‘Are you a conservative?’ I say, ‘Yeah, but I’m a common-sense person.’ I mean, I do things that aren’t necessarily that conservative sometimes.”
Trump said he respected credit card companies but that consumers can’t afford to pay high rates.
“Whatever happened to usury? They can’t pay 28%,” Trump said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump called on Congress to pass a bill capping credit card interest rates at 10% for one year.
Key Republicans in Congress have been cool to that idea, with House Speaker Mike Johnson telling reporters last week that Trump “probably had not thought through” the potential downsides of the policy and that credit card companies may “just stop lending money” or “cap what people are able to borrow at a very low amount.”
Many business leaders have also been critical of the idea.
Yet Trump’s call has also been met with agreement from some progressives, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, whom Trump called last week.
In Congress, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri have introduced a bill that would do just what Trump said, capping credit card rates at 10% for a year.
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