At 8:09 PM tonight, the President of the United States walked onto the stage at the first-ever Republican midterm convention and slowly made his way over to the podium, stopping along the way to catch his breath and soak in screams of “I love you” from women in the audience. Once at the podium, Donald Trump launched into an hour-and-47-minute speech unlike any ever given by a president of the United States in the 250-year history of our country.
By the end of the night, through slurred speech and fumbled words, Donald Trump would make one of the most shocking promises ever delivered by a sitting president, especially on the eve of an American election. Standing on that stage, with the cameras rolling, the President of the United States looked into the audience and made what many are viewing as a bribe to the American people to control who they vote for, when he promised that if Republicans win control of Congress, every adult American gets $5,000.
“I can make this promise to you, and here is my promise. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate … I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.” He then added: “It will be called the Trump dividend.”
That was just one moment in an evening built on desperation and his willingness to say or do anything to keep his unchecked power from being taken away from him. When Trump had walked onto the stage, his yellow-orange face makeup looked smeared, like it had been applied in a rush, creating a stark circle around his hairline and neck. Everything about the event felt unpolished and hurried, even the empty seats in the audience, where large sections of the American Airlines Center sat empty, including most of the upper levels, despite Trump’s claims that there were so many people they had people lined up and waiting outside. He said that after it had already been reported that the RNC spent days sending unsolicited texts to people offering free tickets in an effort to fill the room. The whole setup was so disorganized that even one of the letters in the word “Dallas” on the podium fell off while RNC Chairman Joe Gruters was speaking.
Early in the speech, before Trump’s bribe, we were already seeing signs of just how badly he believes Republicans need to win this election, even going so far as to tell the audience that if he had not won the last election in 2024, he was not sure our country would even still exist today. He forgets to mention every single time when he says something like this that he has now been the president for a combined five and a half years. He is having an increasingly tough time convincing anyone that America not being great is anyone’s fault other than his own, after controlling it for nearly six of the last ten years.
No president in the history of this country has ever done what Donald Trump did tonight. He will say it was completely legal, and maybe it was. But the reality is that legal and pro-democracy might be two different things tonight. Because he actually stood there tonight and told the American people, on national television, that if they vote to keep his party in power, he would personally, in his capacity as the president, issue them a check. He compared it to “a successful company” issuing “a cash distribution to its shareholders.” Except our country is not a business, and he is not just issuing extra money, he is telling us that if we keep him in power, he will give us money.
The math doesn’t work either. There are roughly 260 million adults in the United States. At $5,000 each, the cost would be way over $1 trillion. And then there is the law, too. Under federal law, it is a crime to pay or offer to pay someone for voting. If that law is broken, the punishment is up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both. Donald Trump’s promise is not directly conditioned on any individual person voting Republican, which is an important legal distinction, but he still stood on a political stage and told Americans that if Republicans win, they get $5,000.
This isn’t the first time he has made a promise like this either. He makes lots of promises that never come true, but that can still leave people thinking that maybe this time will be different. Late last year, Trump posted on Truth Social that Americans would receive a tariff dividend of at least $2,000. Those checks never came, and the hope that they would quietly faded into the background noise.
What he is not telling people is what is actually coming after the midterms. The Big Beautiful Bill was designed so that many of its worst changes do not take effect until after the election is over and the votes are counted. Many of the parts that will specifically make life harder for working families were delayed until after the midterms, meaning millions of Americans will not feel the full impact until it is too late to factor those consequences into this election. That is the cruelty built into these policies and the decisions made by Donald Trump and the Republicans who passed them.
The rest of the night was typical Donald Trump incoherence and propaganda. Trump called Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, “a great guy,” and Mike Johnson grinned at the compliment. He targeted the press and called out a reporter, Shawn McCreesh, by his name, encouraging his followers to boo at him and the press in general at other times.
Then there was the moment that Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman appeared via a pre-recorded video to introduce Republican Senator Dave McCormick, also from Pennsylvania. He called him “a great American” and pledged to work with the president. The White House shared the clip and added the caption “Based John Fetterman,” which, in far-right MAGA circles, means they are praising him for aligning with their movement by breaking from what was expected of him, aka he abandoned the Democrats and now is a Republican without the official R next to his name. Democratic reactions were about what we would expect. Pennsylvania state representative Malcolm Kenyatta called him “Benedict Arnold, but lazy,” saying he “could barely get off the couch in his million-dollar mansion to kiss Trump’s ring” and “phoned it in like everything he does.” Representative Chris Deluzio said Fetterman is “not going to be a Senator after 2028, mark my words.” Reports have surfaced that Trump offered Fetterman, through Sean Hannity, “more money than he ever dreamed of” to switch sides. Tonight, Fetterman completely destroyed what little dignity he still had left.
Maybe the most honest part of the night was when Donald Trump told the room of people, many locals from Texas, that, “I don’t need to be here tonight. I could have been in a nice place somewhere in the world.”
Those words paint a picture of who Trump is, and also how badly he thinks November will go. Toward the end of the speech, Trump asked the crowd to remember him as “the guy who got this amazing economy started.” But after this speech, he will be remembered as the guy so desperate that he tried to buy votes.
When he was speaking, I started to think beyond him wanting an easy run at the rest of his presidency and beyond to something deeper and more troubling. Clarence Thomas is 78 years old. Samuel Alito is 76. Both are approaching the average retirement age for Supreme Court justices since 2000, which is roughly 80. If either were to step down or were unable to serve for other reasons, and Republicans still held control of the Senate, Trump would get a fourth appointment, locking in a far-right supermajority for possibly decades to come. If Democrats take the Senate in November, those confirmations are most certainly blocked regardless of how much longer Trump’s term is, just like Mitch McConnell did to Democrats in the past. Maybe that has a big part in the desperation we are now seeing coming out of the White House. Yes, Donald Trump wants control, but the people behind him are thinking way past his relevance and into what comes after him.
The bigger picture of how all of these connect is one of the things we have to make sure as many people as possible understand. Yes, the lucky survived his first presidency somewhat intact. But that experience is giving far too many people a false sense of security now, convincing them that because we made it through once, we will somehow make it through again. We are already living with the consequences of that kind of thinking, and it is already not okay. Our country has fallen so far in just 20 months that the president felt emboldened to suggest he would pay people with government, taxpayer money if we vote and keep his government in control. We can’t keep telling ourselves that somehow, no matter what happens, everything will just be fine, because it isn’t and it won’t.
As Donald Trump said tonight, 55 days from now, we need to show up and vote as if Donald Trump himself is on the ballot. Because in every way that matters, he absolutely is. His continued destruction of our country is on the ballot. So is his war, the future of the Supreme Court, and everything else his administration will have the power to do over the next two years. His vision of a country where a president can stand on national television and promise Americans $5,000 if his party wins control of Congress is also absolutely on the ballot.
On November 3rd, we are going to honor his wishes, show up in numbers never seen before, and tell him exactly what we think of him and his MAGA sycophants. That is why I still have hope for America, and you should too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
PS. You can make a significant difference right now by subscribing to my Substack. Your support helps me cover more ground and keep telling the truth about the lies and destruction unfolding in this country.
This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: I cut almost two pages from this post right before I published it because I didn’t want the focus to be lost and taken away from Trump’s $5,000 suggested payments. $5,000 is life-changing money for so many people, especially right now, and I am very concerned that someone could detest everything he is doing and still end up voting for Republicans when they wouldn’t have done so before. He has done this same song and dance before and never sent the money, but when every penny counts, you are left vulnerable to believing whatever gives you hope for better days. Hopefully there will be a large backlash and his attempt to buy the election backfires. Tonight’s picture is the coast looking toward La Jolla right after the train went by. It is still very humid down here, but we had a cool ocean breeze on our walk tonight, which felt amazing! We are down in San Diego, and at least where we are, there hasn’t been any of that destructive flooding other areas are seeing. I’m thinking of everyone going through that right now.
Sources used in the writing of this post:
Campaign 2026: Republican Midterm Convention (Day 1): C-SPAN YouTube Video
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-dividends-5000-checks-rnc-midterm-convention/
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6080741-trump-dividend-november-pledge/
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/09/politics/live-news/trump-midterm-convention-live-updates
He probably got it backwards. Most likely, he'd find a way to STEAL $5,000 from every adult American and stuff it down his pants. And BTW, IMHO, any woman who still screams, "I love you" at him is as demented as he is.
I thought this was prohibited by US election law. I thought there were legal proceedings against Musk who tried with a similar stunt .