Trump Renews $5,000 Payout Pledge in Final Speech Before Midterms
President Donald Trump used his final speech before Tuesday’s midterm elections to renew his promise that every adult American will get $5,000 if Republicans keep control of Congress.
Speaking Monday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Trump revived the pledge while touting the day’s steep drop in oil prices, low unemployment, falling crime and scant illegal immigration, the New York Post reported.
He also pointed to his 29 rallies across the country but acknowledged history is against him. “For some reason, the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms, but we gave this a very strong shot,” he said.
Trump told the crowd that if Republicans win, “everybody is going to get $5,000,” CNBC reported. “We have to keep our Congress strong, free,” he said. “America is ready to go. They’re ready to vote.”
Most of the nearly hour-long speech dealt with the newly reopened Reflecting Pool and other Washington projects. Trump did not mention the midterms until about 23 minutes in, calling them “the most important midterm, I believe, in our lifetime.”
Trump first offered the “Trump dividend” in September at the Republican Party’s midterm convention in Dallas. The Post estimated then that the payments would add more than $1.2 trillion to a national debt already near $40 trillion.
With nearly 270 million American adults, the BBC put the cost at about $1.3 trillion. Congress controls federal spending, and the BBC noted that Trump has not said whether he would ask lawmakers to approve the payments.
Judge Ordered Ad on the Pledge Pulled
The promise has already landed in court. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon ordered the administration to pull a taxpayer-funded ad titled “$5,000 to Americans,” along with two others, the Associated Press reported.
Rochon, a Biden appointee in New York, sided with a coalition that includes the watchdog group Common Cause. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis called her a “Biden-appointed activist judge” who “issued a lawless order.”
In the 33-second video, Trump tells viewers from the Oval Office, “If the Democrats win, you will have an economic depression. If the Republicans win, you will each have $5,000 in your pocket,” Courthouse News reported.
Rochon found the ads likely violated a federal ban on spending public money “for publicity or propaganda purposes.” She said she was “hard pressed” to see the $5,000 message as anything other than a partisan appeal.
In his closing pitch Monday, Trump singled out Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and accused Democrats of conspiring to put “a fake Dan Sullivan” on Alaska’s ballot against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Not every Republican liked the setting. GOP strategist Doug Heye, a former Republican National Committee communications director, told the AP the Reflecting Pool speech was the “last thing” Republican candidates needed.
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