President Donald Trump used the opening night of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas to promise $5,000 checks to Americans. He said every American citizen would receive what he’s calling a “Trump dividend,” but only if Republicans keep control of both the House and Senate in November.
Trump didn’t say how the payments would be funded or whether he would ask Congress to authorize them. He did say the money would have to be spent in the United States.
“The only caveat I have is that the dividend that we’re making must be spent in the United States of America,” Trump told the crowd. “We don’t want you — we don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money. We don’t want you going to China, to Germany. You got to spend the money in the United States of America. In other words, if the Republicans win, if you win. We might not win.”
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According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 245 million adult American citizens. Giving each of them a $5,000 check would cost more than $1 trillion.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said on X Wednesday night that he plans to draft a bill to get the dividends passed “immediately” after the midterm elections.
New York Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman said Congress would never approve it, though, “because it is corrupt and blatantly illegal.”
Legality of $5,000 checks
So is this legal? Experts are divided.
Because the dividend would need congressional approval, John Day, a former prosecutor from New Mexico who deals with cases on government misconduct and civil rights, told The New York Times Trump would likely not be able to issue them with an executive order.
Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade said in an interview with Newsweek that the checks probably wouldn’t withstand legal challenges. Under 18 U.S.C. § 597, it is illegal to offer to “make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate.”
This seems “to fit what Trump is offering,” McQuade said.
Michael McAuliffe, a former federal prosecutor and former elected state attorney, called the dividend “suspect in many ways.”
“In any other context, such a brazen statement would justify law enforcement opening a preliminary investigation to assess the conduct through the lens of potential illegality,” he said to Newsweek. “Offering a financial inducement to vote in a certain way in an election is potentially a crime.”
Day, though, expressed doubts that Trump’s proposal constitutes a bribe to voters.
“Under the proposal as announced, an eligible adult could vote Democratic — or not vote at all — and still receive the same payment if the program were enacted,” Day said.
This isn’t the first time money has been promised. Trump said last year he would cut $5,000 checks from money the Department of Government Efficiency cut from federal government spending. The now-defunct DOGE claimed to save American taxpayers billions through contract cancellations and renegotiations, asset sales, workforce reductions and other measures. However, analysis showed DOGE didn’t lead to these big savings, and federal spending still increased.
Trump also proposed tariff refunds, but these never materialized.
“Let’s review,” Erika York, a senior economist of the Tax Foundation, said on X after Trump’s latest dividend announcement. “In February 2025 Trump floated $5,000 DOGE dividends. Didn’t happen. In November 2025, he said we’d be getting $2,000 tariff dividends. Didn’t happen. Now in September 2026 we’re being promised another $5,000 tariff dividend. Not gonna happen.”
Others have raised eyebrows by tying campaigns to cash. In 2023, then-Republican presidential candidate and current Interior Secretary Doug Burgum offered $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 people who donated to his campaign. Experts questioned whether this violated a federal law prohibiting straw donors.
In 2024, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who led DOGE, announced a $1 million lottery for registered voters in 1 of 7 swing states who signed a petition supporting the First Amendment and Second Amendment. Then, in March 2025, Musk said he planned to give away a pair of $1 million checks to voters when he visited Wisconsin.
Economic impact of ‘Trump dividend’
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a conservative-leaning think tank, said the Trump dividend may lead to inflation, as it’s “just a huge amount of stimulus in the economy.”
“You create enormous demand for goods and services,” Holtz-Eakin said to The Washington Post. “The only way to offset the resulting price increases would be to undo that demand by raising interest rates a lot.”
In addition, Lee Ohanian, a professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, said to The New York Times that “significantly expanding the deficit at this time would come with significant challenges, including the cost of future financing, how markets would respond and how the dollar’s foreign exchange value would be affected.”
At Wednesday’s event, Trump also told supporters to vote in November as if he were on the ballot, saying, “We’re running together.”
Vice President JD Vance will headline Thursday night, with Trump returning afterward to close out the convention.
Crossing the aisle
One of the night’s surprise appearances came from a Democrat. Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman appeared by video to introduce fellow Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick, a Republican.
“Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I’m a commonsense Democrat. I’m always going to stand with America,” Fetterman said in the video. “I’m always going to reject the extremes in socialism. And that anti-American way of life. Dave McCormick is the kind of senator that gets the job done, and he’s going to fight for Pennsylvania. I’m proud to count him as my friend.”
After the introduction, McCormick thanked Fetterman for his “friendship” and his “courage.”
After the introduction, McCormick thanked Fetterman for his “friendship” and his “courage.”
