He was right that the debate on taxing the wealthy triggered a significant intra-party battle, but Bannon and his like-minded colleagues ended up on the losing side. Bannon declined several requests for comment.

Bannon, who served as Trump’s chief strategist in his first term, was the public face of taking on traditional Republican orthodoxy on tax cuts. Vice President JD Vance was pushing similar ideas privately, according to six people on and off Capitol Hill who spoke to the Washington Examiner over the last several months. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A senior administration noted the president was the driving force behind the massive tax bill and his team worked to implement what he wanted. The official added any suggestion that any member of Trump’s senior advisers was pushing for policy changes without the president’s blessing would be inaccurate.

It’s unclear if Bannon and Vance worked together though that appears unlikely. Media reports indicate they have had an up-and-down relationship. (Bannon has refused to say that Vance is Trump’s MAGA successor.)

Yet both Bannon and Vance have Trump’s ear, and the president at times publicly embraced tax increases for the rich.

In April of last year, Trump said he “loved” the idea, adding that raising taxes on the wealthy would “take care of [the] middle class.” The next month, Trump reportedly made the case to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to raise taxes on individuals making more than $2.5 million a year and couples earning $5 million at the rate of 39.6%. Such a move would have raised more than $67 billion over 10 years, which would have lowered the price tag of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and appeased some fiscal hawks in Congress. Proponents also claimed that it would rob Democrats of their main talking point — that the GOP just wanted to reduce taxes for the rich.

HOW THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL BECAME LAW: READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER’S 10-PART SERIES

Yet, many others in the GOP didn’t want to raise taxes on anyone. It ran counter to the core of Republican Party orthodoxy, and Republican leaders in both the House and Senate were against it, partly based on ideology and partly because it would make their jobs tougher, if not impossible, to get the votes for passage. Others have said if Trump really put his weight behind it, the votes could be had.

Critics, including Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, said not lowering the top tax rate and/or passing a “millionaire’s tax” would harm the economy and be disastrous politically.

Johnson, who rarely breaks publicly with Trump on any issue, told reporters he wasn’t on board, saying “generally, we’re trying to reduce taxes around here.”

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) told the Washington Examiner that Republicans were divided, saying “it was a point of contention.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who was one of the authors of Trump’s 2017 tax bill, last year told constituents that the top tax rate in the 2025 bill could go from 37% to 39.6%: “Now that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. And the rationale for it is, we can take that money and use it for increasing [the] child tax credit.”

In a recent interview, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said “there was a lot of back and forth” and “significant disagreements” on a millionaire’s tax. He said there were pockets of support, though it would have cost the votes of other GOP senators.

Thune wasn’t a fan, saying, “It’s not a conservative position.”

Asked if Vance, a former senator, was pushing it, Thune responded, “I don’t know for sure … he may have been.” He added it “probably fits with [Vance’s] overall political philosophy.”

Some congressional officials interviewed for this series said there was a widespread perception on Capitol Hill that Vance was behind the effort. The impetus, these sources say, was coming from within the White House, both from the principals and their staffers. Others point out Trump was floating an idea he was seriously considering and his inner circle simply was discussing it with him.

Leaks emerge

As the battle escalated, leaks to the media started to emerge.

The Washington Post in April of last year reported that “Vance and budget director Russell Vought have expressed openness to the idea in internal administration deliberations and are viewed as supportive” of raising taxes for top earners.

At the time, Vance’s office said the president was deciding what should be in the bill and the vice president would support whatever his boss wanted.

Fox Business host and former Trump official Larry Kudlow went on air and said, “I don’t like it one bit. I hope it’s not true. What good would that do? By the way, the top end pays half the taxes in the first place.”

The senior administration official stated media reports on this issue as the bill was being formulated were overstated.

John McLaughlin, a Trump pollster, said a millionaire’s tax would be gutting the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017 and it would have been “1992 all over again,” referring to President George H.W. Bush’s broken “read my lips” tax pledge that some say cost him the 1992 election.

He added that a tax on the wealthy would have hurt small business owners, many of whom report their firm’s income on individual returns.

OPINION: Yes, Congress should raise taxes on the wealthy

Proponents last year, including Trump, mulled crafting the wealth tax with a carve-out for small businesses.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) said Vance never lobbied him on the matter.

“No, he never pushed me for that,” Crapo said in an interview.

“This was attributed to a lot of people,” he added. “It was attributed to the administration.”

While he ultimately opposed raising the rate, Crapo said he wasn’t necessarily a hard no on it at the time.

“I was open to one way or the other on that … but in the end I opposed it, and I’m still opposed to it,” he said.

Vance did not pursue tax increases for the wealthy when he ran for the Senate and did not propose any such policy changes when he served in the upper chamber.

Effect on small business

Small business groups were paying close attention, especially because Bannon and others were lobbying for a tax increase on the rich in 2017. At the time, Bannon was in the White House and was pressing for a top tax rate that had “a 4 in front of it.” The 2017 Trump tax cuts were ultimately lowered from 39.6% to 37% and extended with the 2025 law.

Bannon’s push in 2017 and 2025 “never had the votes,” Norquist said. However, it had to be beaten back repeatedly, he added.

Alfredo Ortiz, who represents small businesses as the CEO of the Job Creators Network, said, “It kept rearing its ugly head.”

A former congressional aide who helped draft the big beautiful bill said, “It was much more real than people realize.”

Vance’s economic populism has raised eyebrows and could hurt his chances if he runs for president in 2028. Vance this summer faced a Republican backlash after he criticized the philosophy of Milt Friedman, who was an architect of “Reaganomics.”

Vance touted Trump’s tariff policies and said, “Milton Friedman’s ideas made more sense in the 1980s because they were being advocated in a country that still had a very rich and powerful institutional Christianity. … American economic policy on the Right is now much more Alexander Hamilton than it is Milton Friedman.”

Kudlow and Stephen Moore, both of whom played a role in shaping the big beautiful bill, bashed Vance for his comments on Kudlow’s Fox Business show. Kudlow, who served as Trump’s director of the National Economic Council in 2017, called Vance’s comments “peculiar,” “odd,” and “most curious” earlier this month.

Moore, chairman of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, said, “We may have to pay [Vance] a visit on economics. … He seems to believe that we need more government, a more robust centralized government and I don’t think that’s where the party is.”

Kudlow downplayed Trump’s interest in any type of millionaire’s tax or not cutting the top rate in an interview with the Washington Examiner, saying he talked to the president both in 2017 and 2025 and never took to it. Kudlow, meanwhile, praised the big beautiful bill and its effect on the economy, noting that the stock market is “soaring.”

Trump seemed torn last year on what to do on a wealth tax. bid. In a Truth Social post as the legislation was being shaped last year, he wrote, “Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!”

Trump was well aware of Bush breaking his tax promise before losing to Bill Clinton in 1992, but attributed the incumbent’s defeat to Ross Perot’s independent bid.

Norquist said he was about to get on a flight abroad when Trump called him on May 7, 2025.

IN FOCUS: JD VANCE PICKS A LANE — AND A FIGHT

Trump wanted his thoughts on taxing the rich. Norquist said it would break his group’s high-profile pledge not to raise taxes, which has been signed by most GOP politicians (including Vance) and many Republicans running for office. Norquist also mentioned Bush’s unsuccessful bid for a second term. After their discussion, Norquist said he was told the idea was dead and was “not happening.”

McLaughlin said Trump’s flirtation with raising high-income earners came from his “populist instinct,” and his decision to kill it came from being “a businessman.”

Members of the Washington Examiner’s staff who have worked on this series over the past several months are Haris Alic, Hailey Bullis, Bob Cusack, Christian Datoc, James A. Downs, Gabrielle M. Etzel, Lauren Green, Zach Halaschak, Chris Irvine, Joseph Lawler, Naomi Lim, Maydeen Merino, Callie Patteson, Mabinty Quarshie, Samantha-Jo Roth, David Sivak, and Ramsey Touchberry.