President Trump on Friday publicly waffled over whether Republicans in Congress should embrace a tax increase on the rich, underscoring his differences with members of his own party on what should be in a megabill to carry out his agenda.
Mr. Trump on Wednesday had privately urged Speaker Mike Johnson to create a higher tax bracket for those making more than $2.5 million a year. He also told the top Republican that he supported closing what is known as the carried interest loophole, which allows hedge fund, private equity and venture capital executives to pay taxes of only about 20 percent on their profits, which is about half the top income tax rate.
But on Friday morning, he appeared to retreat from those ideas, saying a tax hike could hurt the G.O.P. politically.
“The problem with even a ‘TINY’ tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, ‘Read my lips,’ the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media website, Truth Social. “Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!”
Hours later during a late afternoon event at the White House, he delivered a far different message, saying he would “love” to do it as a “redistribution” of wealth to lower earners, and thought it would be good for Republicans politically.
The whipsawing messages further complicated Republicans’ job as they toil to put together a domestic policy bill they hope to push through Congress this year. Divisions within the party over potential cuts to Medicaid and other popular social programs to pay for it, and which tax reductions to include, have delayed the drafting of the package and threaten to sap support for it. And Mr. Trump’s abrupt and sometimes fleeting demands for the bill have hung over the talks, with G.O.P. lawmakers reluctant to cross him but uncertain of where he will ultimately stand.
Mr. Trump is not constitutionally eligible to run for another election, unlike President George H.W. Bush, who was famously accused of breaking his campaign pledge not to impose new taxes.
But Republicans are already facing blowback over Mr. Trump’s first four months in office, well ahead of the midterm congressional elections. And many do not want to take a vote that would be used by Democrats as a weapon against them.
His social media post equivocating on the idea of raising taxes on the rich left the president an out should Republicans balk.
But during an Oval Office event late Friday that was attended by some Republican House members, Mr. Trump told a reporter that he strongly supported an increased top tax rate and made the case that it would help rather than hurt the G.O.P. with voters.
“I would love to do it, frankly,” Mr. Trump told reporters.
“You’re giving up something up top in order to make people in the middle-income, and the lower-income brackets, save more. So it’s really a redistribution, and I’m willing to do it if they want,” Mr. Trump said. He appeared to be referring to the House Republicans who were present.
“But I don’t think they’re going to be doing it,” Mr. Trump said seconds later. “But I actually think it’s good politics to do it, where richer people give up — and it’s a very small, it’s like a point — but they give it up to benefit people that are lower income.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump spoke with Grover Norquist, the anti-tax crusader who has for decades pushed for candidates to sign a pledge against new taxes, to urge his support for the idea of raising taxes on top earners. Some of the president’s aides suggested that doing so wouldn’t technically violate Mr. Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, according to two people briefed on the call who were not authorized to speak publicly.
A White House spokesman said only that officials don’t discuss Mr. Trump’s private conversations.
Mr. Norquist, in a brief interview when he was reached overseas, declined to discuss what Mr. Trump had said about the idea.
But he said he told Mr. Trump that, “raising the top rate will kill jobs.”
“Raising the top rate will slow the economy,” he said. “And raising the top rate will mostly hit small businessmen and women who have pass-through corporations.” He said he underscored that his group had previously supported Mr. Trump’s campaign language about tax cuts.
Mr. Norquist posted a similar thought on the website X the same day as the call.
He said he separately told the White House that his group, Americans for Tax Reform, has “not stated a position on any hypothetical on the pledge, which we don’t do unless we’ve seen it in writing.”
