Donald Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November.

The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.

  • Konala Koala@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Or maybe the asshat wants to turn Elon Musk over to get the $1 trillion from him, which will be enough to pay two hundred million American adults $5,000 each while having him go from the world’s richest man to the world’s poorest man, and him going from being filthy rich to living in a filthy ditch due to all the DOGE and CYBERTRUCK failures.

  • StrutTower@discuss.online
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    1 day ago

    Just making the offer of money for votes is a federal crime. You don’t even have to actual do it. But of course no one in power has the balls to do anything.

  • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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    24 hours ago

    Multiple problems with this.

    For one thing, it’s blatant corruption. Attempting to bribe the voters with taxpayer dollars? Using federal funds for partisan activity?

    Aside from that, didn’t he make promises like that last time, which he never delivered on? How stupid could his base really be? (please don’t answer that. I know they’re dumb as hell).

    Lastly, if we look back to his last term when he used federal money to write checks to every american adult, the effect it had on inflation as well as the national debt was enormous.

    So yeah, fuck this with a rusty spoon.

  • Wilco@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    This asshat raised my taxes $8500 a year and wants to give me $5000 one time? Yea, sure. Sadly MAGAts will fall for it again.

  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Sorry, I’m apparently unfamiliar with how democracy works. You are allowed to pay people to vote for you?

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      I guess technically he’s just running on a “give every American adult 5k” platform ? Of course I wouldn’t put it past him to try to only give them to GOP voters

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Short answer : no.

      Long answer : legal doesn’t really matter when Congress and the SC are in your pocket and refuse to hold you accountable for explicitly breaking the rules over and over again.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Yep. This is how Doug Ford is Premiere of Ontario. He literally went into low income housing and gave out $20 bills.

    • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      You are allowed to pay people to vote for you?

      No, and this is a violation. Either paying $5k dividend is a good or bad idea. Congress will vote on it. You can’t say that it is only a good idea if Nazis keep control of congress.

    • Snowies@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      If you convince enough wealthy people apparently “democracy” means you can just do whatever you feel like.

    • InputZero@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Yes, but it depends on how you do it. For the USA, if it were following its own laws, which it’s not, Trump can not give every person $5000 if the Republican party holds a majority in the House and Senate. That’s because following the laws the House would need to appropriate the funds first, pass that, send it through the Senate, have it pass there, then be signed by the president. In a normal America, the President can say they will pressure Congress to appropriate the funds and pass it but it can’t be a unilateral decision.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Note that he never promised those dollars to be US dollars. Re-watch it if you don’t believe me. It could be e.g. 5000 Guyanese Dollar. They even have a nice 5000 dollar note, which would buy you a McDonalds “meal”.

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Re-watch it if you don’t believe me.

      Why on earth would I not believe you? Nobody legitimately makes the distinction unless it’s ambiguous, and to Trump’s tapioca pudding brain, it’s far from ambiguous because the US dollar is the only dollar that exists.

      This is a weird attempt at a gotcha, when the reality is that he has no intention of fulfilling this promise and no intention of justifying his failure to do so. If the GOP retains control of the legislative branch, the checks will never be mentioned again.

    • gigaqps@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Finding some “well actually” loophole is a 2000s kind of lie. In today’s post truth society you just make false statements and ignore people who call you out on it

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Lottery ticket is 2 bucks. Trump is costing the average American several hundred a month at this point. Buying a ticket for yesterday’s drawing is a better use of your money.

  • TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    We’re all just ignoring the blatant illegality of buying votes then and pretending this is normal and okay for a sitting president to do? Ok…. Cool.

    • TheFogan@programming.dev
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      2 days ago

      Maybe he can get away with it using say the strategy pepsi tried for their millitary jet comercial etc… IE a “no reasonable person would believe it was a real offer”.

    • Karmanopoly@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      You’re also ignoring that you’re $40 trillion in debt and not doing so well economically.

      This adds another trillion or two lol

    • bus_factor@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      He’s not really buying votes if he’s promising it to everybody. At that point it’s just a stimulus.

      • queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone
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        2 days ago

        It’s a bribe because it’s conditional on Republicans holding congress. He’s buying votes. Whether or not he’d actually make good on the offer is an entirely separate matter.

        • bus_factor@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          I get where you’re coming from, but he could easily argue that he needs a Republican majority for the bill to pass, and that the conditional is referring to that.

          • queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone
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            2 days ago

            He could. I still think it’s a textbook bribe, but ultimately it would have to be congress deciding, and I doubt they would judge based on the US code so much as they would be weighing their election chances with President Trump vs President Vance.

          • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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            2 days ago

            All republican stooges are changing the subject when few are asked about it. Unless they tack on gas chambers for immigrants, enough dems would vote for this if they had GOP minority proposing the bill in solidarity.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        If it’s contingent upon people doing something that he wants, it’s a bribe. It doesn’t matter if it’s other things too. A bribe can take many forms.

  • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    They bought his cheap made in China maga clothes

    They bought his $500 dollar gold sneakers which turned out to be trash

    They bought his expensive ecd knife which turned out to be gas-station-knife quality

    They bought his crypto which turned out to be pump&dump and lost money

    They bought gold phone which turned out to be plastic and 2 years out of date

    They’re buying the minted coin which they lose money on

    Something tells me they’ll still fall for this one thinking it will be the one that’s genuine.

  • Th4tGuyII@fedia.io
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    2 days ago

    Nevermind the financial cost. He’s literally offering to bribe the public in broad daylight, an impeachable offense under article 2 section 4 of the US constitution:

    The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

    There’s no interpretation of this section that can make Trump soliciting votes by way of bribery not an impeachable offense… But he’ll get away with it again because his cronies in Congress will refuse to impeach him.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 days ago

      I’d love for that to happen, but realistically, any blanket term the public should want that you campaign with could be construed as bribery.

      “Vote for our party and if we win, we’re going to get universal healthcare and medicine and do away with medical insurance filth”

      See. Now the public is being bribed with a functioning government that works for its citizens.

      • wols@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        These things are not analogous. Trump isn’t saying “vote for me and if I win I’ll use my newly invested powers to give you xyz”.
        He’s saying “vote for my friends and I’ll use the power I already have to give you xyz”.
        There’s definitely a difference, the second being much more coercive. Imagine if instead he threatened to send people to fight in Iran if republicans didn’t win the midterms. Whether this is illegal I don’t know, but it should be.

        It’s also much weaker rhetorically. You can’t say “I haven’t given you the $5k yet because I didn’t have power before”.

        • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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          17 hours ago

          I’ve already heard lawyers chiming in and saying it isn’t technically illegal.

          But yeah, theres a lot of things that should be illegal.