January 10, 2026
Late last night — President Trump posted something very interesting.
He says please be informed that we will no longer let the American public be “ripped off” by credit card companies that are charging interest rates of 20 to 30-perent and even more which festered unimpeded during the sleepy Joe Biden administration. Affordability – all caps. Exclamation point.
Effective January 20 2026, I as president of the United States am calling for a one year cap on credit card interest rates of 10%. Coincidentally the January 20th date will coincide with the one year anniversary of the historic and very successful trump administration.
Ok – first. We can all agree that credit card interest rates are astronomically high and ridiculous. And as I reported in this video back in November – according to the New York Fed – American household debt hit a record high in the third quarter of 2025. The orange section represents the amount of credit card debt that people are carrying in this country. That orange section represents $1.23 trillion of just credit card debt.
And the most debt that Americans are delinquent on – is credit card debt. And the vast majority of that credit card debt is due to astronomically high interest rates.
According to the federal reserve’s latest report – in November of 2025 the average credit card interest rate was – a little more than 20%. Of course those rates are so high because lending money to average Americans through credit cards is high risk – so it’ll cost more plus of course the credit card companies need to make a profit.
So now that we’ve established the facts about credit card debt being a real problem. Let’s talk about what the president said. He said as of January 20th he wants the credit card companies to cap that interest rate at 10%. We live in America – which is a capitalist country. In this country no president has the power to unilaterally tell a private company or industry to charge a certain amount for its product or service. Now – a president can convince congress to pass a law that would do something like that…which of course would be challenged in court. Or a president could instruct his administration to go through a lengthy rule-making process that could do something like that…which would also be challenged in court. But a president can’t just declare it so – especially not in a social media post.
But I mentioned the rule making process…and I want to point out to you — President Biden did do something with credit cards that Trump eliminated. Biden used the rule making process and directed his consumer financial protection bureau to create a new rule that would have capped credit card late fees. The rule said if you didn’t pay your credit card balance on time – the credit card company was not allowed to charge you more than $8. The CFPB created that rule using a law passed by congress in 2009 called the credit card accountability responsibility and disclosure or card act. I did multiple videos on that process. Of course many banks sued saying the federal government doesn’t have the power to tell them what to charge….and while that case was pending president trump came into office. And in April of this year – the Trump administration agreed with the banks and threw the rule out. And speaking of the consumer financial protection bureau – which congress established by law in 2010 – to specifically regulate banks and protect you from predatory behavior from companies like credit card companies – President Trump – ordered his administration to shut down the CFPB by laying off most of the federal workers who work there and by forbidding the employees who are still there from doing any kind of oversight work to protect you. It’s also worth noting that defunding and shutting down the CFPB is an entire chapter in project 2025.
So what is Trump talking about when he says he’s going to cap credit card interest rates at 10%? The fact is – i don’t know. There is no executive order. There is no rule change that has been announced and there is no new law that has passed through the house and the senate to make it so…and it’s completely unclear how Trump believes even if any of those things are done — how this can happen in just 10 days.
Read Trump’s post here
Read New York Fed credit card debt numbers here.
Read the Federal Reserve report on consumer credit here.
