WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance says Russia is a U.S. adversary but suggests it's counterproductive to approach Moscow as an enemy.
The Ohio senator also said Donald Trump is committed to NATO, the transatlantic military alliance seen as the bulwark preventing further Russian aggression in Europe, although the former president has pledged to “finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission.”
Vance, in a series of television interviews that aired Sunday, nine days before the election, made clear that Trump, if back in the White House, would press European members to spend more on defense and that their administration would work to quickly wind down Moscow's war in Ukraine that began in February 2022 when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops across the border.
“We’re not in a war with him, and I don’t want to be in a war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” Vance said when pressed during an interview with NBC's “Meet the Press” on whether Russia is an enemy. Vance said "we have to be careful about the language that we use in international diplomacy. We can recognize, obviously, that we have adversarial interests with Russia."
U.S. officials this past week confirmed that North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for training before potentially being deployed in Ukraine. U.S. officials say Russia has ramped up a disinformation campaign aimed at sowing distrust in the results in U.S. election on Nov. 5.
Officials on Friday confirmed Moscow’s role in creating a video that appears to show the destruction of mail ballots in Pennsylvania, in what was the latest effort linked to Russia on spreading false information on social media.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has argued that Trump is too cozy with Putin and that Trump's return to the White House would be calamitous for Ukraine and America's European allies.
Vance was circumspect about supporting further sanctions against Russia, saying the Biden administration's use of the tool for Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been as effective as a “wet firecracker.”
“I don’t think that we should overreact to anything. What we should do is encourage our fellow Americans to be careful,” Vance told CBS' “Face the Nation.” “Don’t trust everything that you see on social media. And of course, we should push back where appropriate. But that’s the big question is, what is an appropriate response to a country making social media videos? I’m not going to make a commitment to that sitting right here.”
Trump has boasted of having had an effective relationship with Putin when Trump was in office. The former president has praised the Russian leader, suggested cutting U.S. money for Ukraine and repeatedly criticized NATO.
The former president has said he would not defend NATO members that failed to meet defense spending targets, and warned he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to alliance countries that he considered "delinquent.”
Vance underscored that a Trump administration would continue to support NATO but that it would lean on Europe to increase defense spending.
NATO announced in June that a record 23 of the 32 member nations were reaching the alliance’s defense spending target, 2% of GDP, this year. That's a nearly fourfold increase from 2021, when only six nations were meeting the goal.
“Of course, we’re going to honor our NATO commitments,” Vance said. “But I think it’s important ... that we recognize that NATO is not just a welfare client. It should be a real alliance.”
Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a prominent Republican critic of Trump who has endorsed Harris, said Trump’s approach to Putin demonstrates “a total lack of understanding of the importance of our allies in keeping the peace.
Trump “talks about our allies as though he were a mafia boss,” Cheney said on CNN’s State of the Union. “He seems to completely fail to understand that, in order to keep peace, we have to have allies with us.”
In the wide-ranging interviews, which included with CNN, Vance also played down recent comments by Trump about ending the federal income tax.
Trump said in a Fox News appearance last week “there is a way, if what I’m planning comes out” to do away with it. He told podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday that he was serious about replacing revenue the income tax by raising tariffs.
Trump has pledged to also end taxes on tips, Social Security and overtime pay if elected.
“He’s talking aspirationally about something that he himself thinks is less of a focus than cutting taxes on tips,” Vance said of Trump's call to eliminate the federal income tax.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks during a town hall at Rock Church in Harrisburg, Pa., Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (Sean Simmers/The Patriot-News via AP)
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event at Penn State Behrend Erie Hall, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Erie, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, applauds the crowd after speaking at a campaign event at Penn State Behrend Erie Hall, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Erie, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)
NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.
The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.
Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.
In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.
Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.
"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.
There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.
The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."
Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.
Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.
Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
