President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his promise to distribute $5,000 checks if Republicans retain control of Congress in November, disregarding growing concerns over the proposal in favor of energizing the base on promises to improve affordability.
Trump’s remarks on the second day of the party’s midterm convention in Dallas were shorter and more toned down than his announcement the day before: The president focused on affordability with promises to make permanent his policies cutting certain taxes and prescription drug pricing.
“That alone should get us a big victory in our midterms that are coming up,” Trump said of his prescription drug policies. “Get out and vote, please.”
Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s choice to highlight the economy Thursday evening — without acknowledging recent fallout from the nation’s mounting trade war with Canada or record-high oil prices from the Iran war — reflects voters’ top issue in the final months before the midterms. A growing share of Americans say the administration’s economic policies have worsened conditions in the country, according to a July Pew Research survey.
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Trump unveiled his idea to distribute dividends on Wednesday night, telling the crowd that if Republicans win both the House and Senate, “you win with us and you get $5,000.”
The proposition — one of many promises the president has made throughout his tenure to distribute cash or checks directly to Americans — would probably cost over $1.2 trillion and could balloon the federal debt. Trump has not laid out a detailed proposal for how to pay for the dividends, though he suggested tariffs could help fund them while speaking to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in an interview that aired Thursday evening.
Key Republicans say they were blindsided by Trump’s pledge, noting that the White House did not consult beforehand with GOP congressional leadership, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune. The president told Ingraham he has spoken to Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson, despite also telling CBS News on Thursday that he doesn’t need the Hill’s approval to go through with the payments.
“I do speak to them. We can do it,” Trump said on Fox News.
“A lot of people think I don’t even need congressional approval because we have made so much money,” he added, saying the country has financially benefited from fees associated with companies such as TikTok and Intel. “I see that some people are saying, ‘That’s communism.’ It’s not communism — it’s actually good entrepreneurship.”
Thune’s and Johnson’s offices did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democrats and Republicans have largely rebuked the proposition as costly and potentially illegal.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) called the decision “flat out illegal,” citing a federal law that prohibits offering payments in exchange for voting behavior, while Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California accused Trump of trying to “buy your vote.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said the plan would lead to more debt and inflation.
“What I don’t think you want to do is borrow another $1.5 trillion, and then just try to flood that into the economy, because that will lead to more inflation,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Miami on Thursday. He suggested that instead, the president should “cut people’s tax and return it to the people.”
Some elected officials publicly embraced the idea, including Vance, who said on Wednesday that the plan would help Americans share some of the country’s “incredible wealth” — though he did not mention the checks during his Thursday night convention speech.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said in a social media post that he “will get a bill ready so that we can get the Trump Dividend passed immediately after the November 3rd election.”
A campaign text sent to Texas voters Thursday afternoon contained an abbreviated link with an “attachment” for the $5,000 check it said the president “just authorized.” The URL redirects to the WinRed fundraising page for Eric Flores, a Texas Republican running for a U.S. House seat.
Texas state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat running for governor, said in a statement that she supports the idea to send $5,000 to Texans, but “it can’t be about who’s in power — it has to be about giving the people their power back.” She promised that, if elected, she would deliver “$1,500 Corruption Tax Refund checks” to help working families who faced “the cost of [Gov.] Greg Abbott’s corruption.”
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