Morning Brew Daily - Trump Calls for 10% Cap on Credit Card Interest & Golden Globes Welcome Podcasts

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Episode 755: Neal and Toby discuss Trump’s push to put a 1-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates and how banks are reacting. Then, Walmart just announced a partnership with Google to power their AI shopping experience. Plus, mortgage rates finally have fallen below 6% for the first time in years. And, now that podcasts are a category at the Golden Globes, it’s a sign that the medium is on par with TV and film. Finally, what you need to know in the upcoming week ahead.  Explore Indeed’s full findings at https://www.indeed.com/2026hiringtrends Join us for MBD’s Trivia Night! https://mbdtrivianight-jan2026.splashthat.com/  Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note⁠⁠⁠  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And I'm Toby Howell. Today, credit card companies come under presidential pressure to lower interest rates. Then a podcast got recognized at the Golden Globes, and it's about time. It's Monday, January 12th. Let's ride. Last night, as you were scrolling through Golden Globe, red carpet photos, and NFL playoff highlights, you might have seen someone else's face pop up on social media, Jerome Powell.

In a stunning video message, the Federal Reserve Chair said that the DOJ is conducting a criminal investigation related to his congressional testimony about the central bank's renovation to its headquarters. In stark terms, Powell argued that this investigation had nothing to do with construction overruns and everything to do with political intimidation around his interest rate decisions. He said the threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the risk. the public, rather than following the preferences of the president. Powell framed the investigation in existential terms, claiming that the future of the central bank's independence is at stake. Toby, never seen Powell go gloves off like this. Influencer J. Powell going direct to the American of people. What was the immediate reaction to this spat? In the markets, gold started ripping because of fear that the legal action

undermines the independence and credibility of the Fed. That's been a consistent theme over the last few months. We also had senators weighing in. One name to know here is Senator Tom Tillis. He sits on the committee that votes on the Fed and yesterday he posted on X that he will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed, including the upcoming Fed chair vacancy, until this legal matter is fully resolved. So he is promising to Stonewall any vote, which he can do because the committee right now is split 13 to 11 between Republicans and Democrats. So his vote makes or breaks a deadlock. This fight is just kicking off, though, and you can bet we will continue to monitor the situation and keep you updated. And now a word from our sponsor, indeed. Toby, where

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So far in 2026, President Trump's economic proposals are looking straight out of the Bernie Sanders playbook. In his most recent populist big government intervention, the president demanded on Friday that credit card companies cap interest rates at 10% for a year, effective January 20th, to relieve financial burdens on American families. Trump wrote,

we will no longer let the American public be ripped off by credit card companies that are charging interest rates of 20 to 30 percent. And then in all caps, affordability. This isn't a new concept. Progressive lawmakers like Bernie Sanders and AOC have been pushing for a credit card interest cap for years and Trump campaigned on one back in 2024. According to the Fed, the average interest rate for credit cards was about 21% at the end of last year, meaning that paying down $10,000 over three years would cost you about $3,500 in interest. This is a highly unpopular idea within banking circles and the broader free market community. Interest is a major profit center for credit card companies and an interest rate cap would

wipe out their margins. They warn of a doomsday scenario should this come to pass, wiping out credit access to tens of millions of Americans who would then need to turn to less regulated, more expensive credit sources for short-term cash needs. Sovi, it's an interesting question, though. Why are credit card interest rates so high? That's a great question, Neil. credit card debt is actually unsecured, and by that it means there's nothing that the bank could seize if you don't pay your bill. They could seize your credit card itself, which is valueless unless, of course, you have an MX platinum, and you like the clang of it. But there's no house, there's no car, there's nothing to repossess here. And so they say they need to charge these higher rates to properly price the risk of suboptimal borrowers.

if they say that we don't do this, we don't charge these higher rates to these riskier borrowers, then that would just raise rates for everyone. It would also, as you said, push people to riskier sources like payday lenders. Let's hear what the bank lobby said because they are quite powerful in Washington, D.C. So there's two groups that came together to issue a statement in response to Trump's Post. This is the Bank Policy Institute and the Consumers Bankers Association. They said that we share the president's goal of helping Americans access. more affordable credit. At the same time, evidence shows that a 10% interest rate cap would reduce

credit availability and be devastating for millions of American families and small business owners who rely on and value their credit cards. They published this report last year that said that a 10% cap would have curtailed credit lines to 14.3 million people and families. And this is the argument that you hear it says, if we have a interest rate cap on 10%, then this is just not a business that these banks are going to go into. And only people who don't need credit cards, the most pristine borrowers in America will be the only ones who have availability to credit.

Yeah, expanding on that study, Vanderbilt University last year found that if credit card rates were capped at 10%, Americans would save $100 billion in interest costs per year. And again, that is the thrust of why Trump is doing this. The same study also showed that banks would likely lend less to people who had subprime credit score. So it's exactly, it's a double-edged sword here that you save people money, but you also reduce credit exposure to a lot of people.

Arkansas is a real-world example of this right now. They already enforce a 17% cap on credit card interest rates, but a study by the Federal Reserve published in 2023 found that that cap made it tougher for higher-risk consumers in the state to access credit market. So we're seeing this play out again and again. So is this going to happen? The question is, you know, we don't know there's no legal mechanism by which President Trump can enforce this. This is not being done through Congress. He is essentially doing this pressure campaign on banks to lower interest rates to 10% by January 20th or, quote, suffer severe penalties. But again, there's no enforcement mechanism here.

Still, it's not going over well for bank investors. Banks are down across the board this morning on the stock market capital one, especially. which has a big subprime borrower customer base is down 9%. And banks had been doing really well under the second Trump administration. The bank index that tracks 24 major lenders has been up nearly 40% since Trump's victory in November 2024, which is about double the pace of the broader S&P 500. But it's a bloodbath out there this morning. Bank earnings coming this week as well.

Moving on, Walmart and Google are teaming up Mighty Morphing, Power Rangers style to give you the opportunity to more easily discover and buy products using AI. Walmart has seen the writing on the wall. AI and AI agents drove 20% of retail sales during the most recent holiday season. That's a lot of people not going to Walmart's site anymore. So the thinking down in Bentonville is that if you can't beat them, join them. Thanks to the team up, shoppers who stumble across a Walmart product while searching an AI mode on Google will be able to buy without leaving the conversation.

Walmart struck a similar partnership with OpenAI back in October. Zooming out, we're witnessing the maturation of AI commerce right before our eyes. Also yesterday, Google Shopify, Walmart, and other major retailers unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol or UCP. UCP will help standardize how agents interact with retailers' checkout systems. So if you ask an agent to autonomously go find a new rug for your living room, for instance, the agent won't run into a million roadbox when it tries to add a product to your cart or check. out. Neil, Walmart, Google, and lots of other retailers think this is the future of shopping, so they're getting their ducks in a row. Yeah, to hear Walmart talk about it, this is the next

major evolution in commerce, maybe on par with that e-commerce disruption. Back in the 2000s, there were so many retailers that were caught in the back foot there. I mean, you just go down the line of all the retailers that went bankrupt recently, all those old legacy retailers, Sears, Kmart, even targets struggling to shift its business to e-commerce. This is the next Huge disruption in shopping and Walmart and others say, we are not getting caught fat-footed this time. So I was reading our Retail Brew newsletter about this, which if you're in retail, by the way, you should definitely subscribe to. And they talk to a lot of people in the industry and the general consensus was retailers are starting to focus on visibility and control within a gentic search.

One analyst told Retail Brew, they'll be paying a great deal of attention to how they show up in AI conversations because AI agents are the new way people think that they are going to be browsing. Another expression that is routine in retail circles these days is zero click buying, which is instead of going through the normal checkout process of you find the item, you put in your cart, you put in your car details and you check out. Now you ask, you know, chat GPT or Gemini say, I want a new rug. They'll find the rug and say, do you want to buy it? You don't do any clicking. You just do the prompting. So that's the future that they're envisioning, which is why you see all these kind of team-ups and announcements coming down the pipeline.

And then for tech companies, this is the next battleground for AI. Google going against perplexity going against Open AI. Open AI has an instant checkout feature that it rolled out a few months ago. And now Google is doing this partnership with Walmart and a bunch of other retailers. For Google also, I mean, how does it Google make money is through ads? And this could be a very lucrative market for them. Google said it's already testing direct offers. which is a ad placement that let retailers promote certain discounts like 20% off a product if a user of the AI moat chatbot expresses intent to buy something.

So Google sees this as another way to boost those advertising revenues. All right, welcome to Winners of the Weekend, the segment that had a better weekend than the good people of Chicago. I won the pre-show Academic DeCatholon, may God have mercy on your soul, Toby. So I get to go first. And my winner is aspiring homebuyers, because, you might have more options to choose from in the coming months. A major shift just occurred in the housing market, one that could unlock a lot more inventory. As of the end of 2025, there are now more Americans with mortgage rates higher than 6% than below 3%.

This flippinging could ease the powerful lock-in effect that kept so many people from selling their homes, which drove prices higher and limited availability. Nick Gurley, CEO of Real Estate App Reventure, was the first to point out the reversal on X. He said the direction going forward will be higher average interest rates for homeowners, and that's actually a good thing because it's going to reduce the lock in effect. We are going to see potentially a lot more inventory in the future as that lock in effect just continues to weaken. How do we get here?

Back in the early days of the pandemic, mortgage rates cratered and many homeowners did the smart thing of locking in rates of 3%, shrinking their monthly payments. That proved to be crucial development for what happened next. As mortgage rates soared from the inflation of subsequent years, homeowners have been highly disincentivized to sell their house. It makes little financial sense to swap out a 3% mortgage for a 6% mortgage. The consequence was the slowest housing market turnover in nearly three decades last year because no one was willing to move.

Now that could be changing. More Americans with 6% mortgages means they won't be as precious about holding onto their homes, opening up more inventory, and perhaps thawing out a frozen housing market. Yeah, I think it's thawing is the right word. Not necessarily the floodgates are open. You know, everything is going to the microwave. Right.

You didn't put the housing market on high and everything is melting now because the lock-in effect doesn't just end at 3%. 4% mortgage rates has the same effect. 5% mortgage rates. Those are still strong enough to discourage selling. So this is something that it's going to play out over the next years, maybe four to five years, as some analysts have put it. What have homeowners said about how they feel about their mortgages? A bank rate survey from July found that 54% of U.S. adults say there is, no mortgage rate at which they'd feel comfortable selling their house. That's up from 12 percentage

points from 2024. 34. 32% say they would need rates below 6%. 23% would need rates below 5%. So there is still a lot of, you know, tension in this market right now. No one is feeling especially comfortable about where they're at mortgage rates right now and what they would need to sell their house at. But I do come bearing some good news after this other good news. Mortgage rates were at above 6% since September 22. That's a long time, three years. Now they have dipped below 6% for the first time since that date. That came last week on Friday, actually, after President Trump directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion worth of mortgage bonds. And that sent the mortgage rates a little bit lower. This tactic is usually used during emergency times.

the Fed bought a lot of mortgage bonds during the pandemic, and that brought interest rates a lot lower. So people, analysts say that this is a mechanism that could lower interest rates a little bit on the margins. It's not going to be a wholesale change. You're not going to see rates get to that 5% level, 4% level because of this mortgage bond buying. But it will put a little bit more downward pressure on mortgages.

And now we got below 6%. All right. We're going to take a quick break and come back with my winner of the weekend. Not loving your AT&T or T mobile bill. Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot. Good news. Bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal. So get away from that unfortunate phone bill and get to Verizon.

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That's OLLL-Y.com. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot. Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179, like the next grill three burner gas grill, or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together.

Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th, Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. My winner of the weekend is podcasting because the Golden Globes finally realize who the real stars in entertainment are. Last night for the second straight year, Nikki Glazer hosted a well-received

Globe's award ceremony that saw the favorites clean up, but also the introduction of a new category that is near and dear to Neil and I's hearts. On the nominations front, this year was basically one battle after another's party. The film led all movies with nine nominations with four wins, including Best Musical or Comedy. Yes, it submitted itself in the comedy category.

Timothy Salomey also snagged his first globe for his nasty forehand winners in Marty Supreme. On the TV side, adolescents cleaned up, notching four wins. There was some fun, tension baked into the presenter lineup with the stars of heated rivalry, Hudson Williams and Connor Story, handing out awards with a lot less kissing than you'd expect. The biggest change this year, however, came in the form of this new category. For the first time ever, the Golden Globes honored podcasts. Morning Brew Daily, unfortunately, missed out and had to watch Good Hang with Amy Poehler

bring home the hardware. Neil, calling it now, we will be nominated one day and lose in heartbreaking fashion to Los Culturistas. And I give you permission to try and arrest the trophy away from Bowen Yang. But I think this does speak to a wider moment podcasts are having right now. Yeah, first of all, congrats to Amy Poller and Goodhank. Our peer. Our peer.

She really cut through the noise of celebrity podcasts. How saturated is that market? Every celebrity, every comedian is talking to somebody. But she really has struck a chord with people with amazing. amazing booking, amazing guests and just her conversational style. This podcast started in March, and it already ended the year at number 10 on Spotify's Most Listen to Chart. So well deserved to her by cutting through the clutter.

But yes, podcasts are having a moment because last night, I don't know if you were on Netflix, you might have seen that the Bill Simmons podcast went to Netflix for the first time. There was a live streaming episode, a video episode of the Bill Simmons podcast. That's part of a huge push that Netflix is making. They're bringing at least 34 original and license shows from YouTube and other areas to Netflix exclusive. And so this is a big push that Netflix is making to try to boost its daytime viewership and make podcasts a thing on its platform, which is crazy to think about Netflix and podcasts. That's where we are.

But good lot in Netflix because right now the big 1,000 pound gorilla in the podcast space, at least when it comes to video podcast is YouTube. that is where much of the podcast listening is happening. In October, viewers streamed more than 700 million hours of podcasts on their TVs alone, and that is just one month. So it's clearly becoming the destination. And I'm sure some people are rolling their eyes, listening to this and saying, who is watching their podcasts on TV? But a lot of people do.

We have a YouTube channel, too, if you want to see our faces. But what started as a primary auditory medium, you know, you put it in your ears, you walk, you do the dishes while you listen to your podcast. Now it's become a visual medium as well, and that is why you see kind of this bidding lords breaking out between YouTube and Netflix. Netflix just recently bought the rights to the Breakfast Club, which has 6 million subscribers on YouTube,

to bring them over to their channel. So I think we're seeing a new podcast war breaking out when it comes to video podcasts. Yeah, Netflix. This is just the start for next. It's for Netflix and the podcasting world. The company is expected to ramp up to 50 to 75 original podcasts, in addition to those licensed properties this year alone.

It's starting with, of course, the official Bridgerton podcast to accompany the new season of Bridgeton. But yes, we are in a new arms race for video podcasts, which is the fastest growing facet of this industry. Next year we'll get the Golden Globe, Toby. Don't worry. All right, it's Monday. So here's what you need to know. To stay ahead in the week ahead, it's set to be another tense week in Iran where the largest mass anti-government demonstrations in years continue to grow over the week. weekend. Supported forcefully by the United States, thousands of Iranians have marched

through the country's major cities. At first it was to protest a currency crisis that supercharged inflation, but now the outrage is directed against Iran's authoritarian regime more broadly. President Trump, who has told the protesters the USA stands ready to help, is reportedly weighing military strikes on Iran due to its crackdown on the uprising. Hundreds are feared killed by the regime's response. On Wall Street, the stock markets had a strong start to 2026, but it's about to face the first of many tests in the new year. On Tuesday, the monthly inflation report will be released for December. We know it's going to show inflation well above the 2% target. The question is by how much. Also, tomorrow is the dawn of a new earnings season.

Per usual, big banks kick things off with JPMorgan, City, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, opening their books to offer crucial insights on the health of the economy and the American consumer. Yeah, it looks like it's going to be another good season for banks, despite the credit card news so we talked about at the beginning of the show. Corporate dealmaking came back in droves. Trading revenues were up because trading clients kept having to rejigger their portfolios based off whatever. You know, policy announcement was being posted on truth social. And in general, it looks like AI was helping keep cost down right now. Analyst estimate that the industry's six biggest banks will likely boost their combined annual profit by 9% from a year earlier.

So again, it's, it is a continuation of a great run under Trump's second term for these banks. I think we're all going to be curious to hear what Jamie Diamond does have to say about that 10% interest rate cap proposal. Expect a global shortage of lanyards with three huge industry conferences being held this week. Over in San Francisco, J.P. Morgan is hosting its healthcare conference that always generates deals and headlines. The A-list in retail is in New York for the National Retail Federation Conference. And in Orlando, the aviation industry will be in town for the Sightech Forum, built as the world's largest event for aerospace, R&D, and technology. There are more conferences going on than I could ever imagine. I did not know.

I just am not in an industry where we're going to conferences all the time. And I'm just always shocked by the size and just the sheer amount of them. Also, this made me think about, were you a lanyard guy, Neil, growing up? Because I used to carry my keys on lanyards exclusively. In college, that was definitely a thing to do. Right. But then I grew up a little bit. Maybe we should bring back the lanyard.

This is what I'm thinking about when you tell me about these conferences. All right, up in space, NASA. announced that it would be bringing a crew of four home from the International Space Station early in its first ever medical evacuation from the ISS. Last week, the space agency said that an astronaut fell ill from a serious but undisclosed medical issue. And while that person is now stable, it was a big enough deal to get them down before the mission was set to end in February earliest.

The goal is to have them land near California early Thursday morning, depending on weather and recovery conditions. Yeah, NASA is now considering moving up another launch because right now only three, people are aboard the ISS or after these astronauts return. And that is not a great number because as space system expert Don Platt said on NPR, that means the crew members that are there are pretty much just concentrating on making sure the space station can continue to run. And a lot of the science will have to be postponed. So that is a knockdown effect of this is that basically that just making sure this place stays together, not doing any of the science they went up there for.

You haven't taken some PTO in a while. You should hop on that mission. Finally, in sports, the NFL's Wildcard weekend wraps up tonight with the Texans visiting the Steelers. Over the weekend, the Rams, Bears, Bills, Niners, and Patriots book their tickets to the divisional rounds starting next Saturday. And for a cure for the winter blues, might I direct you to the Australian Open, which kicks off in sunny Melbourne next Sunday or the PGA tour, which begins its new season in Hawaii on Thursday? How did you know I had a little bit of the blues?

Neil, I will be tuning into those things. Also, I noticed, did you say the Philadelphia Eagles? Wait, I didn't hear that. Not cool. Not cool. Sorry. That was, that was an inevitability. That was, that was kind of a tough season to watch.

All right. Let's end the podcast there. Thanks for starting your morning with us. Have a wonderful start to the week. If you want to get in touch, send an email to Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com or DM us on Instagram at MB Daily Show. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer.

Raymond Lou is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Hair and makeup, thanks to Eagles, do need to clean house. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. Spring is the season everyone refreshes everything except their blinds. People put it off because they think it's complicated. But at blinds.com, we've spent 30 years proving it's not.

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