Trump pushes Republicans toward economic populism

President Donald Trump and the Republicans are falling in the polls with less than 10 months until the midterm elections. Today, Trump is experimenting with left-wing economic populism.

Last week, Trump called for a one-year 10% cap on credit card interest, unveiled plans to ban large private equity funds from buying housing and said he would bar defense companies from issuing dividends or buying back stock. These measures go against many policy wishes of the populist progressive left and borrow from political opponents like former Vice President Kamala Harris.

It comes as Trump, who won a second term on a pledge to cut costs, finds himself underwater on the economy. A recent CBS News poll found that only 39% of voters approved of his performance on the issue, while 61% disapproved, one of his worst polls since taking over the presidency.

That’s a big deal for Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill, who could lose their slim majorities in the House and Senate in November’s elections. Democrats are criticizing the administration with an election year message focused on affordability, arguing that the president and his allies have failed to lower costs for ordinary Americans. This line of attack on the cost of goods worked well for Democrats in the late 2025 gubernatorial races.

The Republicans hold a very slim majority of 218 votes to 213 in the House and a majority of 53 votes to 47 in the Senate. A growing number of Republicans in the House have decided to step down at the end of this term, and Trump has warned that if Democrats take the House, “they will find a reason to impeach me.”

Trump’s measures appear aimed at addressing voters’ concerns about affordability — in the Truth Social post where he announced the interest cap on credit cards, the president wrote “AFFORDABILITY!” But not all Republicans on Capitol Hill are convinced that Trump’s populist turn represents a life raft as Democrats routinely take the lead in generic congressional polls.

“Self-control, clear messages and clear priorities would help,” Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who will retire at the end of this term, said in an interview with CNBC. “In fact, he looks more and more like a Democrat, if you think about it.”

“When you talk about limiting corporate home purchases, limiting the salaries of business leaders, I mean, that sounds a lot more like a Democratic message to me,” Bacon said.

Other Republicans have been even more dismissive of the effort.

A longtime House Republican, who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss Trump’s proposals, said: “The kinds of things we’re talking about right now… are called hiding from your record.”

The Trump administration is defending the president’s populist shift amid complaints from some in the Republican Party.

“President Trump received a resounding mandate from the American people to break Washington’s obsession with consensus orthodoxy that has failed Americans,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. “The Trump administration is turning the page on Joe Biden’s economic disaster by implementing traditional free-market policies that work – like deregulation and tax cuts – while rectifying America Last policies that support Americans.”

But even House and Senate Republicans haven’t exactly embraced Trump’s latest measures to lower costs for Americans, and appear to be uniting around the message that Trump is an “ideas guy.” In the past, Trump has thrown myriad policy proposals at the wall to see what would stick, forcing his Republican allies to quickly adjust their priorities.

“The president is the ideas guy, and what he is stubbornly determined to do, and laser-focused on, is the same thing we do, which is to reduce the cost of living.,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson at a news conference Tuesday when asked about the credit card interest cap proposal.

“I wouldn’t get too excited about any outside-the-box ideas that are proposed or suggested,” Johnson added.

Republicans have largely echoed banks in warning against a 10% cap on credit card interest, arguing that such a cap could lead to fewer people being offered credit and lower spending.

Trump’s proposal to cap credit card interest was published in a Truth Social article, hours after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tweeted about it. Sanders, the former 2016 and 2020 presidential candidate, has long championed a populist economic agenda and proposed an interest cap on credit cards in 2019. He sponsored a bill with Sen. Josh Hawley, a populist-leaning Missouri Republican, to impose the cap.

“Trump promised to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and stop Wall Street from committing murder with impunity,” Sanders wrote. “Instead, he deregulated the big banks by charging up to 30% interest on credit cards…Unacceptable.”

Hours later, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was “calling for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates of 10%.”

Trump’s housing proposal is also similar to that of former Vice President Kamala Harris. In 2024, during her presidential campaign, Harris urged Congress to pass a bill that would have prevented investors from purchasing large numbers of single-family rental homes. Large private equity firms currently own less than five percent of single-family rental homes.

“I’m taking immediate action to prohibit large institutional investors from purchasing more single-family homes, and I will call on Congress to codify this. People live in homes, not businesses,” Trump said in his Truth Social message announcing the policy.

It’s unclear whether Trump’s populist turn will ultimately provide cover for Republicans, who plan to travel the country to sell voters on their “One Big Beautiful Bill” law that cuts taxes and advances other policy elements sought by Trump.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who became a frequent foil to the Trump administration after leading the charge to force the release of records linked to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, said he’s not sure those ideas are even popular.

“His populist economics is what it is,” Massie said in an interview. “It could very well be popular, I mean, there will be some downsides as well. We’ll see how it plays out and if he can actually pull it off.”

Pollsters say Trump is seeking a “game changer” to change voters’ minds on the economy.

“He has to convince people that things are going to improve economically in a short period of time and that’s what all of these measures, I think, are intended to do,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling. “It could tighten up, and the bottom could come out, and the other side could run away with it.”

It remains to be seen how Trump will accomplish this. Many of the proposals would likely require congressional authorization.

To that end, Trump appears to be reaching out to Democrats — including those he has repeatedly denigrated.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Mass., said Trump called her Monday after she gave a speech at the National Press Club, where she made the case for a Democratic victory in 2026 by arguing that “when the choice is between ‘making the rich richer’ and ‘helping everyone,’ winning elections means choosing ‘everyone.’

“I told him that Congress could pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he actually fought for it,” Warren said in a statement after the president’s call. “I also urged him to lead 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.”

Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, who represents Silicon Valley and is an oft-talked-about potential 2028 presidential candidate, welcomed the president in an interview with CNBC.

“Well, I’m glad Trump is proposing populist policies. I support the idea that we should ban private equity from buying single-family homes; that was my bill,” Khanna said. “If he wants to propose progressive or populist policies that will help Americans, I will vote for them.”

That’s not to say that all major Democrats are ready to help Trump lower prices and save the midterm elections for Republicans.

“I don’t know why we would take what he’s saying seriously, because it’s his policies that are driving up prices,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said at a news conference this week. “Unless he reverses his policy, these prices will continue to rise.”

Second, it’s possible that Trump will use his slew of economic proposals to steer the news cycle away from its weak spots. The president has recently come under scrutiny for his use of the military following the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, his appearances in the Epstein files and his aggressive deportation program.

“Frankly, he’s the master of distraction. In the middle of something, he makes a statement or then turns to something else,” said Rep. Ryan Zinke, Republican of Mount, who was Trump’s Interior secretary during his first term.