Margaret Brennan Presses Kevin Hassett on When Americans Will Receive Trump’s Promised $2K Checks

Face The Nation’s Margaret Brennan outright asked chief economic advisor Kevin Hassett on Sunday when Americans can expect to receive the $2,000 checks President Donald Trump promised as a result of his “liberation day” tariffs.

“Let me ask you a bit about tariffs,” Brennan began. “Since, as far back as July, we have heard the president refer to this idea of $2,000 checks being given out to households. The Treasury secretary said this would go to households making less than $100,000. Should Americans plan to receive those checks in 2026?”

Hassett put the onus on Congress.

“Congress is going to have to send those monies to those peoples,” Hassett said, before shifting to tout the current economy.

“But the thing we can say is that since July we have had a lot of positive news about the economy. We’ve had a couple of quarters of almost 4% growth. We’ve got a big government surplus actually running for a few months in a row. The deficit relative to last year is down by $600 billion,” Hassett said. “So, in the summer I wasn’t so sure there was space for a check like that, but now I am pretty sure there is. I would expect in the new year the president will bring forth a proposal to Congress to make that happen.”

Brennan sought clarification, asking, “So a new proposal for these — it’s not necessarily coming from existing tariff revenue?”

“Oh, well, it could come from tariff revenue,” Hassett said. “But in the end, we get taxes, we get tariffs, we get revenue from lots of places, and then Congress decides how to spend those monies that’s in appropriation. This would have to be money that’s an appropriation.”

“So, don’t bank on it, in other words,” Brennan surmised.

Last week, Trump announced he was sending $1,176 checks to every service member as a “warrior dividend” for Christmas made possible through his tariffs. However, the funds were actually coming “rom Congressionally-allocated reconciliation funds meant to subsidize housing allowances for service members.

Watch the clip above via CBS News.