Coming to a Campaign Rally or Fox News Show Near You: The Trump Bribe

Desperate to turn a tide that is threatening to sweep the GOP out of power in Congress in eight weeks, Donald Trump tried to convince gullible Americans with very short memories on Wednesday night that he will give them lots of money if they vote for Republicans.

Seeing how there is absolutely no chance, i.e., zero percent, that this is going to happen, it’s hardly worth going into the details of this Trump Bribe*. However, to highlight the absurdity of the proposal, here they are: Specifically, the president claims to want to pay every US adult $5,000 if they just keep the GOP in control of Congress.

In case you are wondering, there are nearly 240 million adults, and this would cost $1.2 trillion.

Now, let’s assume that Trump were actually serious about this (which he is not), and that it is not just another one of his cons (which it is).

In that case, he would have to get Congress to pass legislation authorizing these payments. However, that’s not going to happen.

Now, it may be possible that Republicans will run on this promise, and Fox News will almost certainly pretend that this is a real thing, but enough of them ultimately won’t go along with a plan to add to the $40 trillion deficit with an injection of cash that would very likely lead to an increase in inflation.

But this is never going to get that far.

We know this because Trump has tried this trick before.

At the start of last year, he and Elon Musk floated the idea that the work of DOGE would result in $5,000 rebate checks for American taxpayers. Of course, back then, they were still pretending that the “government efficiency” initiative would result in $2 trillion in savings. In reality, DOGE has since only claimed to have saved $110 billion, and even that number is exaggerated.

Trump also promised a tariff dividend of “at least $2,000” a few months later.

As an aside, he claimed at the same time that his administration would soon pay down the “enormous debt of $37 trillion” (see above for how that went) because those import taxes brought in “trillions of dollars.”

None of that happened. Not only did American consumers end up paying for the bulk of the tariffs, but the total amount they brought in was a pittance compared to the president’s boasts. Specifically, the “Liberation Day” tariffs added up to $165 billion.

Of course, with regard to that “dividend,” the promised amount is inconsequential since it never materialized. Just like the DOGE rebate, and just like the Trump Bribe will turn out to be nothing other than the frantic effort of an unpopular president to avoid accountability.

*It’s not really accurate to call this a bribe since a bribe is something you actually get. Trump’s pledge, on the other hand, is the equivalent of telling a toddler that you will buy him a unicorn if he just stops pulling the laundry off the drying rack for once. Of course, there is no unicorn, but the kid doesn’t know that. Needless to say, this is neither good parenting nor good presidenting.