MAGA-aligned U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) spoke in favor of President Trump’s executive order to put a 10 percent cap on credit card rates for one year. The order, which Trump says will be effective January 20, doesn’t require approval by Congress.
As seen below on News Nation, Marshall was reminded of what he said on debate night in October 2024 about Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s opponent, wanting a cap on credit card fees.
(Note: In May 2024, a Trump-appointed judge blocked a Biden administration rule that would prohibit credit card companies from charging customers late fees higher than $8. The rule was part of a broader push by the Biden administration to eliminate “junk fees.”)
Marshall was quoted as saying: “Kamala Harris wants price controls and likes government handouts. Price controls and government handouts, in fact, drive up costs across the rest of the economy and diminish the quality of goods and services.”
BREAKING: GOP Sen. Marshall BUSTED, confronted with receipts on his own hypocrisy, as he once slammed Kamala Harris over price controls that he now favors.
No principles, just politics.pic.twitter.com/87fsG4Qu11
— Really American
(@ReallyAmerican1) January 13, 2026
When asked “Why are you now in favor of price control?”, Marshall replied, “Well I think desperate times call for desperate measures.”
The Senator then tried to recharacterize the measure, saying “I wouldn’t call this price control, what we’re capping is interest rates.”
Marshall complained that “credit card companies are making 45 to 50 percent net profit margins, banks making 30 percent net profit margins. Look, these have become oligopolies. If there’s truly a free market system, I’d be all for doin’ nothin’.”
[Note: An oligopoly is a state of limited competition in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers, which can be vulnerable to collusion and other anti-consumer practices. Tech, banking, energy, airlines, automotive — with their high barriers to entry — are sectors where competition is often limited.]
Similar legislation introduced in February 2025 by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) would impose a 10 percent cap on credit card rates for five years. Sanders and Hawley referenced Trump in their statement on the bipartisan bill.
“During the campaign, President Trump pledged to cap credit card interest rates at ten percent,” Sanders said in February. “Today, I am proud to be introducing bipartisan legislation with Senator Hawley to do just that. When large financial institutions charge over 25 percent interest on credit cards, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available. They are engaged in extortion and loan sharking.”
Sanders and Hawley cited a Forbes report that found that the average credit card interest rate is 28.6%.