Donald Trump appeared to blank on a vow he previously made to Americans during an interview with The New York Times.
In audio from the sit-down last week that has since gone viral, Times reporter Katie Rogers asked Trump when Americans could expect to receive the $2,000 checks he had promised, funded “based off of your tariff revenues.”
Trump responded: “I did do that? When did I do that?”
“Well, I mean…,” Rogers began.
Trump, whose health and cognitive abilities have come under increasing scrutiny in recent months, cut her off and said, “Well, I did $1776 for the military, right?” — a reference to his administration’s so-called “warrior dividend” payment to military personnel ahead of Christmas. The $1,776 payments, which referenced the year of America’s founding, were funded through congressionally allocated money, not tariff revenue, according to reports.
Rogers’ colleague Tyler Pager then pressed Trump on the original $2,000 pledge, asking: “When will Americans get those checks?”
Trump replied: “Well, I am going to. The tariff money is so substantial that’s coming in that I’ll be able to do $2,000 sometime, I would say, toward the end of the year.”
Trump had explicitly promoted the idea in November, promising “a dividend of at least $2,000 a person (not including high income people!)” from monies raised by his tariffs policy in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Earlier in his second term, Trump similarly floated the idea of sending Americans $5,000 dividend checks using public funds saved through spending cuts and job reductions overseen by billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Those checks are still not in the mail.
