Trump has given a new update on his $5,000 “Trump Dividend” promise, again tying it to tariff revenue, as legal experts continue to question how the payments would actually work.
Donald Trump revisited the $5,000 checks he promised earlier this month, this time during an Oval Office event about a new steel plant.
The promise is the same as before: if Republicans hold the House and Senate in November, every adult American gets $5,000.
The money is supposed to come from tariffs.
“Because of tariffs, we are taking in hundreds of billions of dollars of profits,” Trump said and added:
“It’s one of the reasons I can offer, if Republicans win the House and the Senate, $5,000 to every adult. And we can do it and the Democrats can’t, because the Democrats don’t have any income, and they’re gonna drive us in[to] a depression. They won’t have any money.”
The math still doesn’t really add up
Roughly 240 million adults would qualify for the dividend, and at $5,000 each, it adds up to about $1.2 trillion which doesn’t include the distribution cost, which would be far from free.
Legal experts keep pointing out that Congress controls federal spending, and something at this scale would normally need legislation first and for now nobody knows how the payments would actually get sent out.
