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.
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.
Man, between this, the $5000 DOGE checks that will never come, and the $2000 tariff checks that will ALSO never come? We’re all rolling in it, boys!
It’s raining imaginary money!
In the Trump economy, that $5,000 might just barely cover the cost of a month’s expenses.
It would be much better if we just put down the mad DOGE and took back the money stolen by the Trumpian mafia.
THAT’S BRIBERY
Lmao
Yep. And you know what they say about bribery:
Article II, Section 4: 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.
The key thing is “…on Impeachment for, and Conviction of…” Which isn’t going to happen if things stay as they are.
I don’t know. This is pretty brazen, and the midterms aren’t looking good for the Republicans. If enough GOP congressfolk think they’d be better off facing the midterms under the stalwart leadership of President Vance, I could see them moving en masse behind an impeachment push. The ball has to start rolling somewhere though, and I don’t know which representative would be likely to introduce articles and palatable to enough Republicans that they could join under the color of bipartisanship.
All that presumes a congress that doesn’t suck though, and when in doubt, congress sucks. Being the first mover is dangerous, especially with Trump still at the helm. I’m not saying it’s likely, but it could happen.
Any Republican worth anything would do it “as a patriot.” Bipartisanship is fine, but “patriotism” is their whole thing. When a president does something this bold it should be easy to benefit by being someone who actually stands up for what they speak about so often. Obviously this is in a sane world though, and it also requires that they care about real patriotism, not nationalism.
Even if we win I won’t pay! 🫲🍊🫱
So Lech Wałęsa, during first democratic elections in Poland after the fall of communism in 1990, promised that if he wins every citizen will get 100.000.000PLN ($2.5k, lots of money in Poland in 1990). People laughed, there were songs about it but he did win the elections. Of course no one got 100M PLN.
Years later I saw some documentary about rural regions in Poland and they were talking with some farmer from a tiny village. He looked and talked like he could barely read…
Farmer: Wałęsa was not my President.
Reporter: So you didn’t vote for him?
Farmer: I did because he promised me 100M PLN…
So yes, people can be that stupid. MAGA definitively is stupid enough to buy it.
So Trump wants to redistribute wealth from those tha pay more in taxes to those that don’t? Hmm, there’s a word for the redistribution of wealth but I can’t remember what it is. I do know that Republicans have waged wars over it at the request of conglomerates though.
Just like the doge checks and the tariff rebates. And and
“dubious”
It’s a fucking lie.
eh I think people should only be reminded about what happened with his promises of lower grocery prices and how much richer the billionaires, including himself, got since he took office
Weren’t yall promised money from tariffs and doge and shit. Got any of that money yet?
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.
He’s not buying anything if he never pays for it.
A bribe welched upon is still a bribe.
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”.
He’s not really buying votes if he’s promising it to everybody. At that point it’s just a stimulus.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Republicans: lol hes just joking.
Fuck trump
Narcissists just proiect their values on other people, and disregard what the people actually need.
Source: my mum is a fucking narcissist.
The guy who never pays people what he owes them says once again that we’ll get a vague mystery check sometime soon? I’m going to go ahead and hold my breath for that.
