President Donald Trump is promising to pay voters for a third time ahead of the contentious 2026 midterm elections.
“I am pleased to announce that my Administration will, immediately, begin sending ‘checks’ of nearly $100 to over 20 MILLION wonderful Seniors to help pay for the Medicare Part B premiums, which we have already reduced by significant amounts,” the president, 80, claimed via his social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday, October 2.
“This money will come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, a pointless ‘Slush Fund’ that has only been used by Dumocrats [Democrats] in Congress to pay for the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse for their Special interest friends, and drive up Healthcare costs,” the president continued to allege. “We are finally using this Fund, along with my Most Favored Nations Deals, to substantially LOWER costs for our Seniors. I pledged to protect and preserve Medicare and Social Security, which were on the verge of RUIN by Joe Biden, who foolishly and maliciously left tens of millions of Illegal Aliens into our Country, and we are doing just that for America’s Seniors.”
The president added, “This is separate from the equally substantial Refund ‘Checks’ we are sending to One Million Americans who were overcharged for their Unaffordable Care Act plans by Joe Biden.”
The White House’s so-called plan to deliver $90 checks to help 20 million seniors pay for their healthcare is far from the first time the commander-in-chief has claimed he will pay voters for their future loyalty.
Last month, Trump claimed he would be sending $500 checks to at least 1 million Americans to also pay for their Affordable Care Act premiums. And while on the campaign trail ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, the president claimed he would pay every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retained control of the House and the Senate after November.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump claimed during the Republican party’s midterm convention in Dallas, Texas. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”
Shortly after, Vice President JD Vance attempted to walk back the president’s claims, alleging that the so-called dividend payments would not go to wealthy individuals while suggesting the payments would be funded by U.S. tariff revenues. (The president is not authorized to make such payments — Congress would have to either approve or simply allow Trump to send the alleged money amid a national debt of over $40 trillion.)
“The idea that we’ve had fiscal success is backwards and bordering on laughable,” Marc Goldwin, a senior policy director for the Washington, D.C., think tank the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told the Associated Press of Trump’s claims. “We don’t have surpluses to give away.”
The president’s numerous monetary promises to would-be voters comes amid his historically low approval rating, a rise in gas and diesel prices and the ongoing — and immensely unpopular — war in Iran.
