Billionaire investor Mark Cuban on Tuesday teed off on Donald Trump’s proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and the former president’s broader economic agenda.
“Next, in the ‘what the hell is he thinking list?’ is the 10% price cap on credit card interest rates,” Cuban said during a press call hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.
Cuban, long a Trump antagonist, tore into the former president ahead of Trump’s scheduled economic address in Savannah, Georgia, later Tuesday afternoon. Cuban previously endorsed Harris’ candidacy and has discussed ideas with her policy team.
“They have a whole policy team. I know when I’ve had conversations with them, you know, it’s always gone back to, let’s talk to the policy team responsible for healthcare, responsible for venture capital, responsible for startups — whatever it may be — and I get back a serious, well-studied response,” Cuban said. “That’s the antithesis of what Donald Trump is doing. He says things off the top of his head that tend to be ridiculous, if not insane.”
During a rally last week in New York, Trump floated the idea of temporarily capping credit card interest rates at “around 10%.” He would need Congress to pass such a law, but it fits within his campaign’s broader outreach to working-class voters.
“While working Americans catch up, we’re going to put a temporary cap on credit-card interest rates,” Trump said on Sept. 18. “We can’t let them make 25% and 30%.”
Cuban pointed out that Trump’s plan exceeds that of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who in May 2019 proposed capping credit card interest rates at 15% in legislation he worked on with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
“I mean, literally, Bernie Sanders suggested a cap of only 15%. So now you’ve got Donald Trump getting involved in price caps and price controls to a greater extent than self-described socialist Bernie Sanders,” Cuban said. “And I think that just says so much about how far Donald has gone to his socialist and communistic tendencies, right? I know it sounds funny and a little bit out of whack, but it’s true.”
In response, Trump’s campaign said Cuban “has no idea what he is talking about.”
“If he actually looked at her failed record as vice president and listened to what she says, he would know her policies will destroy our country and the American dream for hardworking families,” Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement to Business Insider.
While Trump’s suggestion caught some conservatives off guard, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican, proposed an 18% cap last fall. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, often considered the voice of establishment Republicans, panned the idea as “a price control on credit.”
“Why do Messrs. Trump and Sanders think it’s helpful to limit credit access and send folks to the pawn broker or leg breaker instead? Card companies might respond by raising fees, which is what happened to free checking after Democrats regulated debit swipe charges in 2010,” the board wrote.
Experts have said credit card companies would likely respond to an interest cap by making it harder for some people to access credit.
“There’s no question that with a 10% rate cap, card issuers would put the clamps down on credit while they figure out how to continue making money in this new normal,” Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree, told CNN.
Interest rates are extremely lucrative for credit card companies. A 2023 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report found that in 2022 credit card companies charged Americans $105 billion in interest and more than $25 billion in fees.
Trump’s campaign defended his proposal, pointing out that credit card debt is at a record high. According to the New York Federal Reserve, Americans have $1.14 trillion in credit card debt. The interest rates Americans pay on that debt are also higher now than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Under Kamala Harris, credit card debt is at an all-time high as wages have not kept up with the pace of inflation,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “That’s why President Trump has promised to cap interest rates at 10% to provide temporary and immediate relief for hardworking Americans who are struggling to make ends meet and cannot afford hefty interest payments on top of the skyrocketing costs of mortgages, rent, groceries and gas.”
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