Trump Dangles Tariff Rebate Checks to Supporters in Sneaky Fundraising Emails
An email sent to Trump’s “trusted one percent” led to a donation page.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Donald Trump may not be able to run for a third term, but he’s still enlisting his supporters to send him money—and dangling a potential reward for their support.
On Sunday, a Trump-aligned political action committee sent out a fundraising email with the subject line “Rebate checks?”
The email, emblazoned with a Trump-Vance 2025 logo at the top, asked recipients one “very important question”: “Should bonus revenue from tariffs go back to the American People VIA CHECK?”
The email's “Rebate Check Poll” actually led to a donation page for a Trump fundraising committee.
Archive of Political Emails
Four separate links in the email claimed to lead to an “Official Trump Poll” which was closing imminently, but all of them led to a donation page.
It isn’t the first time Trump has floated direct payments to voters while simultaneously asking them to pay up themselves.
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In April, the same committee sent an email asking how voters would feel about a “$5,000 DOGE check,” one that would even have Trump’s signature on it.
The fundraising email sent out on Sunday ripped “so-called ‘representatives‘” in Congress, some of whom support his idea for tariff rebates.
Archive of Political Emails
Trump suggested to reporters that he could use customs revenue from tariffs to bolster Americans’ pockets last month, which economists said could cause inflation.
The COVID-19 stimulus checks that Trump introduced during his first term were politically popular, but the last free check rolled out to Americans—under Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan—is now widely blamed for fueling the inflation that plagued his presidency.
Sunday’s email framed Trump as being locked in a battle with Congress to deliver for Americans, declaring that gathering one million responses to the email would be “the best way to send these so-called ‘representatives’ a message they won’t be able to ignore.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who Trump belittled as a “second tier senator” last week, introduced a bill to give $600 tariff rebates to millions of Americans.
Josh Hawley bill would give millions of Americans $600 each from tariff revenue https://t.co/rXK2wg5aYI
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 29, 2025
Trump has not thrown his support behind the bill.
Any donations stemming from the email would have gone to the Trump National Committee Joint Fundraising Committee, a fundraising venture between the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign.
The group has raised almost $50 billion since it was created last April.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Trump National Committee JFC for comment.
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