Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson voiced skepticism Tuesday on President Donald Trump’s move to temporarily cap credit card interest rates.

“I think that would probably deprive an awful lot of people of access to credit around the country,” Thune told reporters. “Credit cards would probably become debit cards.”

“That’s not something I’m out there advocating for — let’s put it that way,” he added.

Thune’s comments come after Trump posted on Truth Social that he was calling for a one-year cap of 10 percent interest on credit cards starting Jan. 20.

Johnson also appeared to tamp down the prospects for immediate action Tuesday, telling reporters he spoke to Trump about it on Monday. He called it among a “long list” of affordability ideas Trump has in mind.

“The president is the ideas guy,” Johnson said, adding later, “I wouldn’t get too spun up about ideas that are out of the box, that are proposed or suggested.”

Johnson also raised similar concerns as Thune, saying credit-card issuers “would just stop lending money” if rates are capped.

In addition to the proposed temporary cap on interest rates, Trump has also thrown his weight behind a long-controversial bill limiting credit-card merchant fees sponsored by Sens. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that has been the subject of intense financial industry lobbying since its introduction in 2022.

Republicans are on both sides of that bill, Thune noted, but he said he believed it would be up for a floor vote “at some point.”

“That’s what we do around here,” he said. “We cast hard votes.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

A bill that could incentivize employers to offer more training and education programs for their workers narrowly failed on the House floor after several Republicans, including members of the party’s pro-labor wing, defected.

Lawmakers on Tuesday voted 215-209 against the Flexibility for Workers Education Act. GOP leaders such as Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) were seen discussing the bill with several hesitant members, some of whom eventually ended up voting for the bill, but weren’t able to get enough people on board.

The bill would allow employers to exclude certain voluntary training programs from the calculation of overtime hours — a change supporters say would encourage skills development by removing the disincentive of having to pay a higher rate for after-hours education. However, critics argue the bill would allow employers to avoid fairly paying workers for the time they spend in job-related training.

Republican Reps. Rob Bresnahan (Pa.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Nick LaLota (N.Y.), Jeff Van Drew (N.J.), Chris Smith (N.J.) and Riley Moore (W.Va.) all voted against the legislation.

“I believe hardworking Americans should be paid for their time, including when they’re training with their employer, and I will stand against efforts to take that pay away,” LaLota told POLITICO.

The bill’s collapse marks a significant setback for House Education and Workforce Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), who helped spearhead the legislation and recently pitched the White House on an ambitious labor agenda during a GOP retreat at the Kennedy Center.

The House on Tuesday later scrapped a vote on two other labor bills: the Tipped Employee Protection Act and the Empowering Employer Child and Elder Care Solutions Act.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

House Republican leaders are allowing floor votes this week on several proposed tweaks to the latest government funding package after hard-liners demanded more input.

The House Rules Committee voted Tuesday to allow votes on two amendments to the package that would fund the departments of Treasury and State, as well as the IRS and the Federal Trade Commission.

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the panel, secured a vote on an amendment that would cut appeals court funding for the District of Columbia by 20 percent and eliminate the budgets of two judges.

The panel’s top Democrat, Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, complained that the sponsors of that amendment didn’t even testify before the committee.

“It seems like this process gets worse and worse and worse,” McGovern said. “Talk about revenge. I mean, we’re going after judges and their staff. … This is not the way this place should be run.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C), the panel’s chair, said House Republicans are ensuring the appropriations process is “member-driven and deliberate.”

The House will........

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