Donald Trump has turned a potential $5,000 payment for American adults into a key promise ahead of the midterm elections. The president says the money will be distributed if Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate after the November 3 ballot, although there is still no approved mechanism to finance or distribute the checks.

Trump defended the proposal again on Sunday during his visit to Ireland, saying the payment will happen because he believes the United States is taking in enormous amounts of money and that the strength of the economy would allow the government to afford the payout. “The $5,000 checks are going forward, 100%,” he said.

The promise, however, faces a key condition from the outset: Congress would have to authorize the spending, which according to an estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) would cost $1.2 trillion, more than what was spent on the three stimulus checks issued during the pandemic. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, acknowledged that lawmakers would have to act to make the plan a reality. “Of course, the devil’s in the details. We have to figure all that out,” he told CNN on Sunday. Johnson also pledged to work to advance the initiative despite Republicans’ narrow margin in Congress. “He’s the president of big ideas. We’re going to try to implement as much as we can,” he said.

Trump originally unveiled the proposal on September 9, during the unprecedented Republican convention in Dallas. At the time, he promised $5,000 to every American adult if Republicans retained both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections. The president dubbed the payment the “Trump dividend” and said the money would have to be spent within the United States.

The potential cost explains much of the skepticism surrounding the initiative. The United States has approximately 240 million adult citizens, which would put the total payout at around the $1.2 trillion figure estimated by the CRFB. Trump has maintained that the payments would not have to be financed with taxpayers’ money, while the White House has also pointed to new private investment and reductions in government spending as possible sources. At this point, it is unclear how much money would actually be available.

It is also unclear how much Republican support the proposal would receive in Congress. Republican Sen. Susan Collins said that, given the few details available, the dividend would have no income cap and would be “extraordinarily costly.” The CRFB warned that the measure would cause a sharp increase in the deficit and likely in inflation. Along the same lines, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, agreed that such payments could pose risks to the country’s debt and inflation.

Democrats have rejected the proposal more forcefully. Some lawmakers have described it as an attempt to buy votes ahead of the election, while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said it is not a serious proposal.

Among Republicans, however, Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio announced that he would prepare a bill to approve the so-called Trump dividend after the November election.

Other similar plans proposed by the president have stalled. Last year, he promoted a $2,000 dividend financed with tariff revenue and another $5,000 payment tied to savings from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition