Trump Privately Pushed Speaker Johnson to Create a New Bracket to Raise Taxes on the Rich: Report [View all]

Source: MEDIAite

May 8th, 2025, 3:58 pm


President Donald Trump reportedly pushed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to create a new tax bracket to raise taxes on the rich. Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman broke the news on Thursday that “on a phone call Wednesday,” Trump pressured Johnson “to raise the top tax rate and close the carried interest loophole.”

“The White House has toyed with hiking the top rate for the last few months. But this intervention raises the stakes — big time,” Sherman added. Sherman later added some details to the plan, which would create a new tax bracket raising taxes on “individuals making $2.5M or $5M jointly” up to “39.6%.”

Reports have surfaced in recent months that the Trump White House has been eyeing raising taxes on the highest-earning Americans. Semafor’s Burgess Everett reported on an April meeting where Trump told GOP Senators he was open to the idea. Everett reported at the time that after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked him about the possibility of tax increases for the rich, Trump said “he’d be fine with that idea.”

In late April, Trump was asked in the Oval Office by a reporter, “Would you support a millionaire tax?” “I think it would be disruptive because a lot of the millionaires would leave the country,” Trump responded. “You know, the old days, they left states. They’d go from one state to the other. Now, with transportation so quick and so easy, they leave countries. You lose a lot of money if you do that.” Everett’s report added weight behind a scoop from Axios’s Marc Caputo and Neil Irwin in late March.

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-privately-pushed-speaker-johnson-to-create-a-new-bracket-to-raise-taxes-on-the-rich-report/

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