President Donald Trump has been cornered on his bizarre promise to cut $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate in November’s election.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham put Trump on the spot, asking him why he made the promise contingent on the midterms when Republicans already control both chambers of Congress.
“Why not just give the money now?” she asked him in a sit-down interview. “If you have the money, why not give it now?”
Trump, 80, gave a nonsensical answer.
“Because the Democrats can’t do it, because for them it’s negative growth,” he responded. “But with us, it’s so positive.”
Trump continued, referring to his import taxes, “We’re taking in $21 trillion. No country has ever taken in anywhere near that. It’s four or five times higher than the next, all because of the beautiful word that you and I love more than most others: tariffs.”
It is unclear whether Ingraham pushed Trump further on the matter. The snippet was aired Thursday afternoon during a live Fox interview with Rep. Brian Mast to seek his reaction to the president’s $5,000 promise, which the Republican fully endorsed.
Ingraham’s full sit-down with Trump will air Thursday night.
Trump first made the bizarre promise during his MAGA Fyre Festival in Dallas, Texas, where he rambled for 106 minutes in primetime Wednesday night—competing directly with the NFL season opener.
The president has pitched the cash payment as a “dividend,” not a bribe, claiming it will come from tariff revenue that can only be taken in if Republicans maintain control of Congress. That figure is unfeasible, however, as it would require an astounding $1.3 trillion to pay all Americans $5,000. Such an amount would likely spike inflation and add to the federal deficit—as stimulus checks did during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republicans have long portrayed themselves as the party that favors reducing the federal deficit and cutting government handouts. Yet, top figures have rushed to praise Trump’s plan.
“I don’t think it’s a controversial idea,” Vice President JD Vance told Fox News. “It’s actually the president of the United States saying, ‘We’re all working together, we’re all on the same team, and if we continue to create wealth, that wealth is going to go back to the American people.’”
Trump has floated the idea of tariff checks before.
He promised in November that a tariff dividend check “of at least $2,000 a person (not including high-income people!) will be paid to everyone,” though he never clarified who would be eligible and, ultimately, nothing came of it.
Trump also endorsed cutting checks to Americans with the trillions Elon Musk promised to save as part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE essentially shut down last summer after sowing global chaos to save, at most, $110 billion in cuts—though experts say the real savings are likely much less.
