President Donald Trump is doubling down on his pledge to put $5,000 in the pockets of every adult U.S. citizen, tying the payout directly to a big Republican showing in the upcoming midterm elections.
The president released a new ad Monday morning on his social media accounts, reaffirming the promise and drawing a sharp contrast between what he says Americans can expect if Republicans win and what he warns they will face if Democrats come out on top.
“I’m going to give all adult citizens in the United States of America $5,000,” Trump said in the ad.
The president then turned his fire on Democrats, arguing that their agenda stands in the way of the plan.
“Democrat policies won’t allow this to happen. In fact, the opposite. They’re going to raise your taxes,” he said.
Trump went on to lay out the stakes of the midterm contest in stark terms.
“If the Democrats win, you will have an economic depression. If the Republicans win, you will each have $5,000 in your pocket, and economic success for our country like we have never ever seen before,” he said.
The ad marks the latest push by the president to promote the proposal, which he first unveiled during a speech at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas. It was there that Trump announced his plan to send what he called “dividend” checks to American citizens.
The announcement quickly drew skepticism. Critics accused the president of blatantly trying to bribe voters ahead of a contentious midterm cycle, arguing the timing of the promise was no coincidence.
The Trump administration has pushed back on that criticism, insisting the checks would be funded entirely by the extra revenue generated from the president’s tariffs.
Still, the questions surrounding the plan did not go away.
Days after the Dallas announcement, amid the ongoing backlash, Trump was asked whether he would first need approval from Congress before moving forward with such an endeavor.
The president suggested that would not be the case, signaling that he did not believe congressional sign-off would be necessary to send out the checks.
That answer only added fuel to the fire. The response provoked even more scrutiny of the proposal, piling onto the skepticism that had already greeted the plan when it was first announced.
Despite the pushback, Monday’s ad makes clear the president is not backing away from the idea. If anything, he is leaning into it.
Rather than downplaying the controversy, Trump is putting the $5,000 payments front and center in his midterm message. In the ad, he frames the election as a clear choice for voters: higher taxes and an economic depression under Democrats, or $5,000 in their pockets and unprecedented economic success under Republicans.
The promise, as the president described it in his own words, would apply to all adult citizens in the United States. And Trump has made it plain that, in his view, whether those checks ever arrive depends on Republicans winning big in the midterms.
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