Trump faces blowback with $5,000 dividend promise

President Trump's pledge to distribute $5,000 to every U.S. adult if Republicans win the midterms is drawing backlash from Republicans and Democrats as the president's allies are forced to explain and defend the proposition.

Fiscal hawks, including Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), openly questioned how the government would be able to afford to pay 270 million Americans that much money, while others have likened Trump's proposal to bribery.

"Maybe some of us think dependency is evil & soul-sucking in all its forms," Roy wrote in a post on the social platform X, referring to Trump's idea.

Former Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), who chaired the House Freedom Caucus, referred to Trump's dividend as a "socialist vote-buying scheme."

It's unclear how the president would be able to implement such a move given there are 270 million American adults, meaning the endeavor would cost the government roughly $1.35 trillion.

The president's latest proposal is not the first time he's offered dividends to Americans. Trump has repeatedly floated a $2,000 tariff dividend check, as well as a $5,000 Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) dividend. Neither idea has come to fruition.

"$5,000 for the peasants will be in the mail after the election only if you vote Republican, along with those DOGE and tariff money checks," former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a staunch Trump critic, wrote in a post on X.

Marc Short, Trump's former legislative director during his first administration, said Trump's pledge furthers his second administration's departure from "fiscal responsibility and conservative economics."

"The president is a performer and having the pageantry of the convention, he's going to throw out something," said Short, who is the board chair of former Vice President Mike Pence's think tank, Advancing American Freedom.

When pressed on the matter on Fox News, Vice President Vance sought to defend the policy as "a dividend for American workers" that would be funded by tariff revenue.

"We're taking in an extraordinary amount of revenue because the president of the United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies but also foreign countries who have been taking advantage of America's workers for pretty much my entire life," Vance said.

"I don't think it's a controversial idea. 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," he continued.

Short responded to Vance's comments, arguing it's "a redistribution of that wealth."

"You're not going to outbid Democrat socialists in the midterm election," he said. "It's one more step down the populist lane of what can we promise the American people to win their vote."

But not everyone has been opposed to Trump's idea.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said he will prepare legislation so that the "Trump Dividend" is passed "immediately after" the midterms.

"Every American adult gets $5,000 if the Republicans hold Congress, per President Trump. So basically the Republicans are literally giving you cash, and the Democrats want to take everything away from you. Choice couldn't be clearer," said Matthew Boyle, the Washington bureau chief for the conservative outlet Breitbart News.

Meanwhile, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who proposed giving every U.S. adult $1,000 per month, said in a post on X that he has "always liked dividends to the American people."

One national Republican operative told The Hill that Trump's dividend announcement was "surprising" but argued it is subject to a double standard.

"The whole concept of government handouts continues to get a ton of much-warranted criticism from the right, but it's interesting to see the level of scrutiny for this plan and not equal scrutiny for the endless handouts from the left," the operative said. "The president's idea is that he wants more money into the pockets of the American people and into the U.S. economy while the Democrats would rather fund their socialist wish-list that would only hurt American workers."