Republicans aren’t making any promises about handing out $5,000 checks to every adult American, even after President Trump doubled down on the plan by telling reporters in Ireland that it will be “easy enough” if the GOP wins in November.
“We can easily handle that because we’re taking in so much money,” Mr. Trump said, referring to revenue from tariffs on foreign goods. “We’ve never done better.”
Mr. Trump’s pledge to hand out the checks, which he made at the Republican midterm convention last week, is forcing Republicans in Congress to scramble to defend the checks and the $1.2 trillion cost to hand them out.
House Speaker Mike Johnson wasn’t making any promises but praised Mr. Trump for the “ingenious” proposal on the Sunday talk shows.
“Like every idea that the president comes up with — he’s a great idea generator — we are going to process that in Congress and figure it all out,” the Louisiana Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Mr. Johnson, in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” called the $5,000 checks “one idea among many to continue the trend of putting money in the pockets of hardworking Americans. We’ll process that like we do everything else.”
A $5,000 handout to every adult in the United States isn’t likely to win support from the GOP’s fiscal hawks eyeing the nation’s $40 trillion debt.
Rep. Mike Lawler, New York Republican, dodged a full endorsement of the plan during an interview on ABC’s This Week.
“It’s not a yes-or-no answer,” Mr. Lawler said, when asked about the checks. “The question is, how do you pay for it? How do you be able to pass the legislation to put more money back in the pockets of hard-working Americans? That’s the objective.”
The president said the handouts would be paid for by revenue from tariffs, but the revenue from those levies would only cover a fraction of the cost.
Trump administration officials are pitching ideas to cover the massive costs.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Trump Platinum Card, which has not launched, could provide much of the funding. The program requires immigration applicants to pay a $15,000 processing fee and a $5 million contribution to the U.S. government to be guaranteed citizenship.
“We have a waitlist of more than 100,000 people who want to come,” Mr. Lutnick said Friday. “That’s $500 billion.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, was asked on ABC’s “This Week” if the $5,000 checks would be “dead on arrival,” if his party wins back the House gavel.
Mr. Jeffries dodged a direct answer.
“It wasn’t a serious proposal that was presented by Donald Trump. He’s broken every promise that he’s presented. Donald Trump promised to actually lower costs on day one. Costs haven’t gone down. They’ve gone up,” Mr. Jeffries said.
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