President Trump's pledge to give $5,000 to every U.S. adult if Republicans keep control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections has raised questions over whether the plan could cross legal lines. The president announced the so-called "Trump dividends" on the first night of the Republican National Committee's (RNC) midterm…
Page F2From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 12 September 2026
THE PRICE OF LOYALTY
Trump raises price of your vote from $2,000 to $5,000, payment due only if Republicans win Congress
“They're calling it a dividend, but a dividend doesn't come with an election attached to it — that's a bounty, plain and simple. Last year it was two grand, this year it's five, and if he loses this one it goes to zero, because it was never a payment, it was a tab he's been running against your vote. You don't get a receipt for a bribe, you get a promise, and promises don't clear at the bank.”
“It's not a bribe, it's a dividend — like Alaska pays out of the oil fund, every resident gets one whether they voted for the governor or not. Well, except this one only pays out if Republicans keep the House and the Senate, so — did I just say "whether they voted for the governor or not"? Strike that. The point is it's an incentive, and an incentive is just a bribe we've agreed to admire.”
The receipts
Producer price inflation is up 5.4% from a year ago, but that is nothing compared with the inflation in vote-buying. Last fall, President Donald Trump was promising Americans $2,000 dividend checks to compensate them for the costs of his tariff regime. On Wednesday night at the Republican midterm convention, Trump upped the ante to…
We've got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt - over eight years, Trump promised in 2016 The Washington Post, 31 March 2016 interview
Our Increasingly Insecure PresidentThe $5,000 election promise shows how afraid Trump really is.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.