president Donald Trump promised on Wednesday to send $5,000 to every American adult if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary move to reverse his party’s course dwindling fortunes in November.
The dubious promise would most likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, further exacerbating the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and inflation concerns.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said during the campaign GOP midterm conference in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”
He compared the payments to a company’s distributions to shareholders and referred to “our enormous strength and economic success.”
Within an hour, Vice President JD Vance appeared to try to reverse Trump’s proposal – at least in part – by suggesting that dividend payments would not go to the rich. Vance suggested that the payment could be funded by U.S. tariff revenues, although the proposed payment dwarfs the revenue the U.S. has collected from protectionist measures.
The White House did not respond to a message seeking details.
Congress would have to approve or otherwise agree to the payment. The sum would far exceed U.S. tariff revenues even before the Supreme Court struck down much of the president’s tariff program last year.
The national debt topped $40 trillion for the first time last month.
Trump has often complained that in modern times the president’s party almost always loses congressional seats during midterm elections, and he has looked for unorthodox ways to buck that trend, including this week’s convention.
“We’re going to change this,” Trump said. “There’s no reason for it.”
Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington think tank, said Trump does not have the authority to send money to Americans without congressional approval.
Goldwein added that companies pay dividends when there is a surplus, but the U.S. runs a $2 trillion annual deficit and has $40 trillion in debt.
“The idea that we have had fiscal success is backwards and borders on the ridiculous,” he said. “We don’t have any surplus to give away.”
The move was reminiscent of billionaire Elon Musk’s vote-buying efforts in last year’s Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, where he handed out million-dollar checks to voters to support a candidate who ultimately lost.
Trump has discussed the possibility before but never linked it to his party’s electoral success. Earlier this year he proposed a $2,000 dividend and said he didn’t think he would need congressional approval.
Last year, Trump gave military members a $1,776 check that he called a “warrior dividend.”
“I will prepare a bill so we can pass the Trump dividend immediately after the election on November 3rd,” Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio wrote on X late Wednesday. “Because Republicans (and America) will win!”
A $5,000 check would give every American more money than they received in direct government COVID-19 relief payments 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 paying individuals to try to get them to vote in a certain way.”
Republicans are on the defensive, trying to defend their slim majority in the House of Representatives against strong headwinds. Trump is unpopular and Americans overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iran. Even the Senate, which the Republicans were once good at keeping, is to win.
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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and River Zhang contributed.