Trump tells Michigan rally every adult citizen would get $5,000 if Republicans keep Congress

By Julian Westerly

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told a rally in Port Huron, Mich., on Sunday that every adult U.S. citizen would receive $5,000 if Republicans keep control of both the House and the Senate in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, repeating a pledge he first made at the party’s midterm convention in September.

“If Republicans win, you’ll each have $5,000 in your pocket,” Trump told the crowd at McMorran Place Arena, MLive reported. He was there to campaign for former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for Senate, and Rep. John James, the party’s nominee for governor. Both joined him on stage.

Trump has described the payment as a “Trump dividend” made possible by the administration’s economic and trade policies. “Because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” he said in his keynote at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on Sept. 9, according to a FactCheck.org transcript review. “We’re making a fortune. So if the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump dividend.” He said then that recipients would have to spend the money in the United States.

The Washington Inquisitor asked the White House on Monday how the payment would be structured and funded and whether the administration would send legislation to Congress; the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case Trump made

At the rally, the president tied the pledge to his record on the economy, immigration and crime. He said his administration had removed a record number of people living in the country illegally and had overseen the largest decline in crime rates, according to MLive.

Tariff revenue has risen sharply under Trump. Net tariff revenue reached $264 billion in 2025, up from $79 billion in 2024, according to a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis of Treasury statements cited by FactCheck.org. Illegal border crossings have also fallen steeply: apprehensions at the southern border over the past year were down 91% from the last year of the Biden administration, the same review found.

It was the first visit by a sitting president to Port Huron, a border city of fewer than 30,000 residents across the St. Clair River from Sarnia, Ontario, MLive reported.

What it would cost

No legislation to create the payment has been introduced, and a payment of that kind would likely need congressional approval, according to FactCheck.org, which cited Politico’s reporting that at least some Republicans are skeptical.

FactCheck.org estimated that about 245 million U.S. citizens are 18 or older, based on Census data, which would put the cost of a $5,000 check for each at about $1.2 trillion. Marc Goldwein, senior vice president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told the site that tariffs are “generating less than $200 billion a year” and that “it would take 6+ years of tariffs to fund one year of these checks.” Robert McClelland of the Tax Policy Center said the proposal would “substantially increase the federal government’s budget deficit.”

Net tariff collections in 2026 have also been reduced by refunds issued after the Supreme Court held that a number of the tariffs exceeded the president’s authority, FactCheck.org reported.

Election-law experts quoted by The New York Times said a pledge of this kind is probably close enough to a campaign promise of tax cuts or other economic benefits to be protected political speech under a 1982 Supreme Court decision, according to the FactCheck.org review. In Georgia’s January 2021 Senate runoffs, Democratic candidates campaigned on a pledge to vote for $2,000 stimulus checks.

The Michigan Senate race

Much of the nearly two-hour speech focused on Rogers’s Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official. “I’m here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator,” Trump said, according to CBS News Detroit.

El-Sayed has said he has never been part of the Muslim Brotherhood. At a town hall in Caro, Mich., this month, when a voter asked whether he would disavow the group, he answered “absolutely,” CBS News Detroit reported. At last week’s debate, he called Rogers’s repeated questions about “an organization I’ve never been a part of” “really quite beneath” his opponent, MLive reported. If elected, he would be Michigan’s first Muslim senator.

Trump praised Rogers as “one of the most respected men in Washington.” “I call him Apple Pie. He’s like perfect, this guy. He’s like central casting,” Trump said. Rogers spoke about the auto industry and about working with the president.

Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel said in a statement that Rogers and James “made it clear they are fully endorsing and ready to rubber stamp Trump’s toxic agenda,” CBS News Detroit reported. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic nominee for governor, whom Trump criticized at the rally, said in a statement that “Michigan citizens will have the final say on November 3rd,” according to MLive.

Former President Barack Obama campaigned for El-Sayed and Benson in Detroit on Saturday, and El-Sayed was scheduled to appear with Sen. Bernie Sanders in Grand Rapids on Sunday evening. Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to campaign for Republicans in Howell, Mich., on Tuesday, CBS News Detroit reported.

The Inquisitor also sought comment from the Rogers and El-Sayed campaigns.