A Trumpy anti-trans activist has been laughed at live on air after trying and failing to defend the president’s $5,000 bribe to voters.
Terry Schilling was on CNN on Friday morning when he tried to justify President Donald Trump’s shock announcement that he planned to give every American adult $5,000 if the Republican Party manages to hold on to both the House and the Senate in November’s midterms.
He spoke with CNN host Audie Cornish and New York Times podcaster Lulu Garcia-Navarro when he claimed the plan—which would cost around $1.3 trillion—would work.
“This is him absolutely trying to pull things out of the air in order to get people to come and vote,” said Garcia-Navarro, before criticizing Trump for invoking biblical images of hell for people who don’t vote.
“We are suffering a huge moment of inflation,” she continued. “Offering $5,000 to people is an inflationary move. It’s what Republicans criticized Democrats for during the pandemic.”
Trump’s vow comes as he tries to overturn the national debt, which has ballooned to more than $40 trillion.
“I had just started to hear Republicans saying the fiscal hawks, they rise like phoenixes every three to five years, and they had just come out of their caves and been like, did you know the national debt is at $40 trillion?” Cornish said. “As they pop their heads out, Trump just literally steps on it, steps on the moment and goes, have I got a deal for you? It’ll just cost you $1.3 trillion.”
Shilling then tried to justify it.
“The last three generations, both political parties have agreed on devaluing and debasing the currency,” he said.
“At the same time, what was incredibly cruel is we were shipping all of our jobs overseas at the same time. President Trump… he’s saying, we got to start to correct this wrong here.”
Cornish was having none of it, and cut in to question Shilling’s position.
“Wait, wait, wait, that’s—no. No,” she said. “He doesn’t say that! He says, ‘I want to spend a trillion dollars.’”
“We have to start making sure that… this K-shaped economy doesn’t keep getting worse and worse,” he replied. “When you debase the currency, these redistribution programs become necessary to avoid that getting much worse.”
Cornish took issue with a particular use of language, asking, “Redistribution programs?
“This is why people are also being like, ‘Hey, what’s the socialist vibe here? We’re just giving out money.’”
Garcia-Navarro went one step further, saying that Cornish had let the president and his scheme off easy.
“It’s giving out money for votes. It’s not even, like, do something that is useful.”
