“I delivered this same message on affordability to him directly,” Warren said. “I told him that Congress can pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he will actually fight for it. I also urged him to get House Republicans to pass the bipartisan ROAD to Housing Act, which passed the Senate with unanimous support and would build more housing and lower costs.”<\/p>\n
In recent days, Trump has renewed a campaign promise to cap credit card interest rates at 10%<\/a> after having failed to push it in the first year of his term, vowed to ban large investors from buying up housing, and directed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to invest $200 billion in mortgage bonds<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump has also raised eyebrows among traditional economic conservatives by having the government take ownership stakes<\/a> in some private companies, threatening to punish others<\/a> for not complying<\/a> with his demands and pressuring Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell<\/a> to lower interest rates \u2014 in conjunction with the investigation launched <\/a>by the Justice Department into the central bank. <\/p>\n “These are not limited-government, free-market policies, and it’s also creating a precedent for the next time a Democrat’s in the White House,” said Marc Short, who was director of White House legislative affairs and chief of staff to then-Vice President Mike Pence in Trump’s first term. “For all the Republicans and conservatives to stay quiet, how are they going to object when the next Democrat wants to exert the same power and influence over the private sector?”<\/p>\n For most of the first year of his second term, Trump has pursued economic policies that progressives detest: dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau<\/a>, cutting taxes for high earners<\/a> in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and allowing Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies to expire<\/a>. His plan to offer homebuyers 50-year mortgages<\/a> landed like a lead balloon and has been abandoned<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., expressed skepticism<\/a> about Trump’s embrace of some progressive policies, saying it wasn’t in line with what he has done thus far. <\/p>\n “Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and stop Wall Street from getting away with murder. Instead, he deregulated big banks charging up to 30% interest on credit cards,” Sanders posted on social media last week.<\/p>\n Warren also said Monday that so far, Trump “has done nothing but raise costs for families,” and he needed to “use his leverage and pick up the phone” if he actually wanted to advance some of these economic policies. <\/p>\n Trump’s shift toward cost-control policies coincides with a broader effort to fight Democrats on the electoral battlefield over the issue of affordability, which helped carry them to sizable November victories in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races and the New York City mayoral election. <\/p>\n The details of Trump’s plans, some of which would require legislation, still need to be fleshed out. He will start to fill in the fine print <\/strong>in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday, according to a senior White House official. Trump plans to drive his affordability message and outline additional economic ideas, the official said, adding that a more comprehensive housing policy is forthcoming.<\/p>\n The credit card rate cap and the ban on investors’ buying housing stock would require Congress to act, and there’s little guarantee that will happen. While the latest moves may pick up support from populists in both parties, he would be likely to face stiff opposition from business-friendly Republicans and Democrats. <\/p>\n And yet, it is clear that some of his initiatives have at least a modicum of bipartisan backing. <\/p>\n Trump’s plan to stop large investors from buying up single-family homes \u2014 a move, he said, that would make housing more affordable for first-time buyers<\/a> \u2014 echoes a yearslong push by liberal Democrats in the House and the Senate to lower home prices for consumers by targeting the same practices. Warren, Sanders<\/a> and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a>, D-N.Y., have all sponsored or co-sponsored such bills.<\/p>\n Trump’s call to limit credit card interest rates<\/a> for a year, a proposal he made on the campaign trail, has sat idle in legislative form<\/a> since Sanders and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced it last year. Americans have, on average, credit card interest rates of 19.65% to 21.5%<\/a>, according to the Federal Reserve and other industry sources.<\/p>\n In the case of his directive for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds, Trump says<\/a> the maneuver will bring mortgage rates and monthly payments down, although some industry analysts predict it would have a negligible effect<\/a> on the housing market. <\/p>\n For many Trump world insiders, his willingness to upend Republican orthodoxy in service of populism is a feature, not a bug, of his policymaking. <\/p>\n \u201cWhile some of this stuff might seem outside of what Republicans would normally advocate for, that\u2019s Trump,\u201d a former Trump adviser said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it wins him any awards with the Chamber of Commerce types, but he absolutely does not care about stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Though many headlines of late have been devoted to Trump’s foreign policy \u2014 from capturing Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro to threatening hostile takeovers of Colombia, Cuba and Greenland \u2014 public polling has consistently shown that the economy is top of mind for voters heading into this year’s midterm elections. Polls have also shown that Americans aren’t optimistic<\/a> about the economy or pleased with Trump’s performance<\/a> on it. <\/p>\n Last month, an AP-NORC poll found just 31% approve of Trump\u2019s \u201chandling of the economy,\u201d a number that was at 40% shortly after he returned to office. At that time, he had just campaigned on a pledge to fix an economy he long blamed then-President Joe Biden for tanking.<\/p>\n But he has been unable to lower stubbornly high prices and the nation\u2019s unemployment rate has also continued to creep up. That could be why he’s taking bigger economic policy swings, the former Trump adviser said. <\/p>\n The gap between how Trump views his economy and the way voters view it has led him to travel in recent weeks to states with key congressional races on the ballot \u2014 including Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina \u2014 to talk up his economic agenda.<\/p>\n \u201cThe entire key is getting prices down,\u201d the former Trump adviser said. \u201cIf he can do that, I think it can only help Republicans in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Some on the left say Trump can’t be for the working class and the wealthy elites he has surrounded himself with \u2014 from Wall Street investors to tech titans \u2014 at the same time.<\/p>\n “As long as you see him cozying up to those people, you know not to believe anything he says about populist economic policy, because those two things cannot exist in the same world,” said Josh Orton, president of the progressive group Demand Justice.<\/p>\n![\"Image:](\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2026-01\/260112-elizabeth-warren-ew-511p-0a4c16.jpg\")
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