US citizens will receive $5,000 if Republicans win midterms, Trump claims in lengthy convention speech

Donald Trump pledged to pay every adult citizen in the US $5,000 if Republicans retain the House and Senate in the midterm elections, during a marathon speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas in which the president assailed Democrats as “radical” and defended his unpopular war in Iran.

The outlandish proposal, which would cost over $1tn, immediately raised ethical concerns. But it laid bare the extent of the Republicans’ concern about their prospects in the pivotal November elections.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000,” Trump told a roaring crowd, during a nearly two-hour long speech in which he also urged voters to “pretend that I’m on the ballot” – despite his historic unpopularity causing many vulnerable Republican politicians to avoid the event.

Surrounded by supporters waving American flag placards, Trump claimed, without evidence, that his second term had been “the most successful two years, financially and every other way, in the history of the presidency”, but devoted much of his speech to fearmongering about what would happen should Democrats win the House or the Senate for the final two years of his presidency.

“There is a crazy little sick cloud over our country,” Trump said. “We will defeat communism in America.”