President Donald Trump is stuck on an idea: sending checks to Americans.A $2,000 “dividend” check using revenue from his global tariffs campaign. A “DOGE savings” payment using 20% of the proceeds from Elon Musk’s budget-cutting initiative. A health care plan that would funnel money away from Affordable Care Act insurance plans and direct it straight to Americans, who might be able to keep any “money left over.”
The White House has yet to release concrete plans on any of it, though press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday that the administration is “currently exploring all legal options” to issue the $2,000 tariff checks.And that puts Trump’s Republicans in a dicey spot.
If direct checks are not issued, there’s a political threat if voters get their hopes up waiting for money they don’t receive. “If you make a promise that sounds good to people, and then it sort of just disappears — maybe they’ve not noticed that the first or the second time — but certainly, if you keep doing that, they do,” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist.
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