President Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November.
The dubious promise would most likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said during the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”
He likened the payments to a corporation’s distributions to shareholders, citing “our tremendous strength and success economically.”
Within an hour, Vice President JD Vance appeared to try to walk back Trump’s proposal — at least in part — by suggesting the dividend payments would not go to the wealthy. Vance suggested it could be paid for by U.S. tariff revenues, though the suggested payment dwarfs what the U.S. has taken in through the protectionist measures.
The White House did not respond to a message seeking details.
Congress would need to approve or otherwise acquiesce to the payment. The sum would far exceed U.S. tariff revenues even before the Supreme Court tossed much of the president’s tariff program last year.
The national debt last month topped $40 trillion for the first time.
Trump has frequently lamented that, during the modern era, the president’s party almost always loses seats in Congress during the midterms, and he has looked for unorthodox ways to defy the trend, including this week’s convention.
“We’re going to change that,” Trump said. “There’s no reason for it.”
Marc Goldwein, the senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank in Washington, said Trump has no authority to send money to Americans without approval from Congress.
Goldwein added that dividends are something that companies pay when there’s a surplus, but the U.S. is running $2 trillion annual deficits and has $40 trillion in debt.
“The idea that we’ve had fiscal success is backwards and bordering on laughable,” he said. “We don’t have surpluses to give away.”
The move was reminiscent of billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to buy votes in last year’s Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, where he handed out million-dollar checks to voters to try to boost a candidate who ultimately lost.
Trump has discussed the possibility before but has never tied it to his party’s electoral fortunes. Earlier this year, he proposed a $2,000 dividend and said he didn’t think he needed approval from Congress.
Last year, Trump gave members of the military a $1,776 check that he called a “warrior dividend.”
“I will get a bill ready so that we can get the Trump Dividend passed immediately after the November 3rd election,” Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio wrote on X late Wednesday. “Because Republicans (and America) will win!”
A $5,000 check would give each American more money than they received in direct government payments from COVID-19 relief measures during Trump’s first term.
Trump’s proposal would be legal because the payment would go to everyone regardless of how they voted, or whether they voted at all, said New Mexico-based attorney John Day.
“This is a campaign promise,” Day said. “It’s not a payment to individuals to try to get them to vote in a particular way.”
Republicans are on defense as they look to defend their narrow House majority against strong headwinds. Trump is unpopular, and Americans overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iran. Even the Senate, which Republicans once were well-positioned to keep, is up for grabs.
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and River Zhang contributed.