‘When Did I Do That?’ Trump Appears to Forget Promising Americans $2K Checks

(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump appeared to forget about his promise to send Americans $2,000 checks from his tariff windfall when recently pressed by a reporters with The New York Times.

Reporters Katie Rogers and Tyler Pager published a wide-ranging interview with the president last week. In audio posted to X, Rogers is heard asking, “You promised $2,000 checks to Americans based off of your tariff revenues. When can —”

“I did do that? When did I do that?” Trump responded.

The exchange continued:

ROGERS: Well, I mean —

TRUMP:  Yeah, I’m thinking — well, I did $1,776 for the military.

PAGER: When will those Americans get those checks?

TRUMP: Well, I am going to — the tariff money is so substantial that’s coming in, that I’ll be able to do $2,000 sometime, I would say toward the end of the year.

Just in time for Christmas, Trump announced he was sending $1,766 “warrior dividend” checks to military personnel, claiming those funds were dividends from tariffs. However, that money actually came from “Congressionally-allocated reconciliation funds intended to subsidize housing allowances for service members,” reported Defense One senior reporter Thomas Novelly, citing a senior Trump administration official.

Top economic adviser Kevin Hassett told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan, “I would expect in the new year the president will bring forth a proposal to Congress to make” the $2,000 checks a reality.

Hassett said the money “could come from tariff revenue. 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 about the potential to made the $2,000 deposit.

Americans are still waiting for promised dividend checks from savings brought about by DOGE in the amount of $5,000. Last February, Trump explained it “as using part of the  20% savings identified by [Elon] Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and giving it back to taxpayers,” according to USA Today.

The outlet reported that “no official plan or schedule for such a payout has been released, and a decision on the checks would have to come from Congress, which has so far been cool to the idea.”