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

[BumRushDaShow]

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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Link to tweet

Jake Sherman
@JakeSherman
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MORE DETAILS.....

What Trump is pushing for is a NEW tax bracket.

Individuals making $2.5M or $5M jointly would go to 39.6%.
Jake Sherman
@JakeSherman
🚨BREAKING NEWS -- PRESIDENT TRUMP privately urged Speaker MIKE JOHNSON on a phone call Wednesday 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
2:11 PM · May 8, 2025

[bucolic_frolic]

1. What do y'all make of that one?

39.6% was the top federal tax rate before Trump tax cuts in 2018. But they applied to incomes over $400,000 for single filers, $450,000 for joint filers. This is a nothing burger, over $5 million. And already the rate presently is 37%.

So you're talking a 2.6% increase on incomes over $5 million.

This is being floated for the PR and voter manipulation benefits. IMHO

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Well it's interesting this would mean the bill would not be a simple word-for-word extension of the 2017 tax cuts

They are slowly finding that if they keep jumping up and down on the 3rd rail and gutting or threatening to gut the stuff being powered by that rail, the torches and pitchforks will soon be coming out of the areas where people DO use "pitch forks" for a living - the red states and red blotches in purple or blue states!

[Cheezoholic]

8. Mines sharpened ;) n/t

[AZJonnie]

5. And 'floated' is the exact right word

It won't actually HAPPEN, he just wants people to know he's considering ordering Johnson to create a new, very slightly higher tax bracket for people earning more per year than 99.9% of Americans ... that is what it was before his 2017 tax giveaway. Johnson will say 'nah' when the time actually comes. But hey, IQ45 did ask him to consider it, so ... isn't he swell?!?

[not fooled]

17. And note the income bracket

Would hit high earners but not the super-wealthy. Oh, no, those billionaires dumbass donnie wants to like him would be the logical targets but he won't go there.

But, no point in serious discussion anyway since this is all to try to soften the bad PR from the evil looting of the treasury they are attempting.

[Irish_Dem]

2. What kind of grift is this?

Trump does nothing unless it personally benefits him.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. He wants to have "tax breaks for tips"

But without raising the minimum wage. So it's possibly to get those service worker votes as a supposed "campaign promise". They definitely aren't in the current tax cuts for the billionaires law (nor in the current blueprint).

Someone apparently whispered in his ear so he'll repeat what the last person told him.

[Silent Type]

6. He'll change his mind soon and/or screw us in other ways. But this is an interesting proposal, at least today.

[andym]

7. Trump and friends have prioritized their social agenda, right wing ideology, and quest for power

Right-wing Billionaires are already rich-- they want freedom to do as they wish and power! They also want to shutdown the traditional Democratic rejoinder to their policies. Bernie and friends will have the wind taken out of their sails with a lot less powerful economic argument about the GOP favoring the rich if Congress does this. Thing is that hard-core anti-tax Republicans won't agree to raise any tax.

[V850i]

9. I would not give this airtime

I don't think DU should promote stuff like this. It's all a game to make people think he is for the common man. BS it is a game, leaked this info... yea sure... and some people will fall for it. I think DU should carefully choose how to word headlines.

Alternate headline might be - Suspicious leak about taxing the rich

[BumRushDaShow]

19. "I think DU should carefully choose how to word headlines."

Posting in LBN has STRICT criteria - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=about&forum=1014

Statement of Purpose

Post the latest news from reputable mainstream news websites and blogs. Important news of national interest only. No analysis or opinion pieces. No duplicates. News stories must have been published within the last 12 hours. Use the published title of the story as the title of the discussion thread.

Because the 45 administration IS in place after an election that Democrats lost, and that administration is filled with nothing but criminal propagandists and liars, any reporting will unfortunately include their propaganda and lies. But completely eliminating any reporting about them as some have suggested, is nonsense, and puts the site in a fantasy bubble.

[PSPS]

10. Don't worry. There will be loopholes so most or all of it won't be classified as "taxable income."

Nobody needs to earn over, say, $2 million a year. The top tax bracket should be confiscatory as it was up until saint ronnie brought in his own "chainsaw" and turned the US from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation.

Any society that allows billionaires to exist is a broken society.

[harumph]

13. Ha ha ha. He's not talking about "capital gains" is he?

Most rich people don't actually claim near as much "income" as their wealth would indicate.
It's just grist for the poorly informed. This is similar to when he said he'd put more sanctions on Russia which
is already sanctioned up the ass. It gives the bought out media something to blabber about to fool
the dummies.

[Skittles]

11. I don't believe it for a minute

when does Trump EVER do anything that negatively affects the people the greedy old pig party caters to?

[Bayard]

12. And it would raise his own taxes, right?

[Skittles]

15. theoretically

as another DUer alluded to, these fucks have kinds of ways to avoid paying taxes no matter what the "brackets" are

[slightlv]

14. With all the screaming from the 1% should he actually propose (or do)

something like this, I think it plays into his desire to get rid of the Income Tax and the IRS altogether.

[rickford66]

16. I say, if the rich leave, goodby and good riddance.

They pay little or no taxes anyway and they aren't the real job creators. Republicans will have to rely on smaller donations and be more responsive to the electorate. A good law would be, when someone reaches a certain level of wealth, they have to self deport.

[ReRe]

18. Note: Millionaires, NOT Billionaires. eom

[republianmushroom]

20. He also will want a couple of new loop holes to decrease the

amount owed.

[Vinca]

21. This smells 100% political to me. Dear Leader realizes he's in peril of losing Congress next year so he'll

try to ram this through briefly to convince the slobbering cult members he's really "one of them." And they'll probably lap it up . . . again.

[BumRushDaShow]

22. It's Bannon stuff

He's been throwing grenades from the populist loon right recently and even in the past.