NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Inmates at a Tennessee prison sought to destroy property, compromised security cameras and set a few fires during a riot that took several hours to contain and caused minor injuries to three inmates and one guard, the facility's private operator said.
On Sunday evening, a large group of inmates at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center from several housing units left their cells and accessed an inner yard, becoming “disruptive and confrontational” and refusing to follow the staff's directions, according to CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin. The prison in Hartsville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Nashville, is the subject of an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation.
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The Trousdale Turner Correctional Center is seen Monday, June 9, 2025, in Hartsville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
The Trousdale Turner Correctional Center is seen Monday, June 9, 2025, in Hartsville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Prison personnel enter the The Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, Monday, June 9, 2025, in Hartsville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Prison personnel march into the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, Monday, June 9, 2025, in Hartsville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
One correctional officer was assaulted and released from the hospital. Three inmates were being treated for minor injuries, Gustin said.
The prison's staff used chemical agents on the inmates, who were secured by early Monday morning. They did not reach the perimeter and state troopers and local law enforcement officers were positioned outside the facility. There was no attempted escape from the facility, Gustin said.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol deployed about 75 troopers and the agency remained on site overnight until “every prisoner had been accounted for,” Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security spokesperson Jason Pack said.
The prison remained on lockdown while CoreCivic and the Tennessee Department of Correction investigate the riot, Gustin said.
Department of Correction spokesperson Dorinda Carter said in a statement that “though a number of inmates were non-compliant with staff instructions, this was not a hostage situation.”
The incident followed an assault by two Trousdale inmates Saturday that injured a correctional officer who remains at the hospital, Gustin said.
Last August, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an investigation into the Trousdale prison after years of “reports of physical assaults, sexual assaults, murders and unchecked flow of contraband and severe staffing shortages,” according to then-U.S. Attorney Henry Leventis. The department confirmed Monday the investigation remains ongoing.
Tennessee’s corrections agency has fined CoreCivic $37.7 million across four prisons since 2016, including for understaffing violations. Records obtained by The Associated Press also show the company has spent more than $4.4 million to settle about 80 lawsuits and out-of-court complaints alleging mistreatment — including at least 22 inmate deaths — at four Tennessee prisons and two jails since 2016.
The state comptroller released scathing audits in 2017, 2020 and 2023.
The Brentwood, Tennessee-based company has defended itself by pointing to industry-wide problems with hiring and keeping workers. CoreCivic has said it offers hiring incentives and strategically backfills with workers from other facilities nationally.
Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee's administration has stood by CoreCivic.
However, the Republican-led Legislature this year showed its concern by unanimously passing a bill that would move 10% of inmates out of a private prison each time the annual death rate is twice as high as a comparable state-run facility. Lee signed the legislation. Department of Correction spokesperson Sarah Gallagher said the agency is developing a procedure to calculate and report the death rate for 2025 under the new law.
The legislation was spurred by the advocacy of Tim Leeper, a roofing businessman who has attended the same local Rotary Club as the two Republicans who ultimately sponsored the bill, Rep. Clark Boyd and Sen. Mark Pody. Leeper's son Kylan was an inmate at Trousdale when he died of a fentanyl overdose. His family has sued CoreCivic over his death.
The Trousdale Turner Correctional Center is seen Monday, June 9, 2025, in Hartsville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
The Trousdale Turner Correctional Center is seen Monday, June 9, 2025, in Hartsville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Prison personnel enter the The Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, Monday, June 9, 2025, in Hartsville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Prison personnel march into the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, Monday, June 9, 2025, in Hartsville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
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)
