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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Edward Helmore

Taxes wouldn’t fund $5,000 Trump ‘dividend’ if Republicans win midterms, says commerce secretary

A bald man gestures on stage.
‘It’s not tax money,’ Lutnick (pictured in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on 2 September 2026) said in an interview with NBC News. Photograph: Jonathan Drake/Reuters

Donald Trump’s controversial proposal to give a $5,000 “dividend” to all US adults if Republicans maintain control of Congress in November’s elections would not be paid out from US tax revenues, according to the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick.

“It’s not tax money,” Lutnick said in an interview with NBC News, adding that the administration could “earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out, not from the deficit and not from taxpayers”.

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