The Rupert Murdoch–owned Wall Street Journal has blasted Donald Trump for suggesting that voters are idiots for rejecting his tariff plans while pushing his far-fetched proposal to give Americans a $2,000 tariff rebate.
The paper’s editorial board questioned why the president needs to float a “Hail Mary” $2,000 dividend to “blunt the harm” of his sweeping tariffs if the tariffs are supposedly beneficial, while also noting that the rebate proposal undercuts Trump’s claim that his tariffs are not taxes passed on to Americans.
“We’ve advised Mr. Trump from the beginning that tariffs would do economic harm, and so they are. They’re also doing political damage to the GOP, which is why he’s floating rebates that contradict his other tariff claims. One other suggestion, Mr. President: It’s never a good idea to call the voters ‘fools,’” the board wrote.
In a typically deranged Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump declared that “people that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!” He then proposed that “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone” in an apparent attempt to offset rising consumer costs brought on by the tariffs on imports.
The Journal’s editorial board noted that issuing $2,000 checks to potentially hundreds of millions of people would significantly add to the already ballooning national debt.
The idea also contradicts remarks made by Solicitor General John Sauer before the Supreme Court last week during a hearing on whether Trump’s tariffs were legally imposed.
During the Nov. 5 arguments, Sauer claimed that Trump’s tariff threats are part of foreign policy negotiations—not taxes—and that they are “most effective if nobody ever pays the tariff.”
“They’re clearly regulatory tariffs, not taxes,” Sauer said. “They are the exercise of the power to regulate foreign commerce.”
The Journal’s editorial board rejected that MAGA logic. “If tariffs are most effective if no one ever pays them, then how are they going to raise the revenue Mr. Trump needs to pay those rebates? The truth is tariffs are taxes, but Mr. Sauer didn’t want to admit this lest the Court conclude that Mr. Trump is usurping a core constitutional power of Congress. Which he is,” the board wrote.
“Mr. Trump is essentially promising to repay Americans $2,000 of the border taxes they’re paying in higher prices. But if tariffs are a free economic lunch, and their benefits abound, why offer a rebate? Shouldn’t voters be thrilled about tariffs even without a rebate?”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed he had not discussed any $2,000 rebate plan with Trump, suggesting that the erratic president may have floated the proposal without consulting economic advisers.
“But the $2,000 dividend could come in lots of forms and lots of ways,” Bessent told ABC News’ This Week on Sunday. “It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda. You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans. Those are substantial deductions that are being financed in the tax bill.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
