Trump's latest rambling pitch just invited another impeachment

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during a campaign rally for U.S. Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, U.S.,

August 21, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
Sabrina Haake
September 12, 2026 | 07:01AM ET

The Trumpapalooza midterm convention in Dallas was an embarrassing flop. Republicans running in competitive races wisely steered clear of the event, staged to spin the disastrous results of Trump 2.0 into ‘The Great American Comeback.’

Speaker after speaker praised Trump so lavishly the convention looked like one of his made-for-tv cabinet meetings. The core audience watching the event, both at home and in the arena wearing sequined Trump merch, appeared to be MAGA loyalists, not the moderates or undecided voters Republicans needed to reach.

Democrats considered holding a competing convention but didn’t, preferring to let Trump bask in the spotlight under the theory that more is less—the more voters see of Trump, the less they trust him.

It was the right decision.

“Bread and circus bribes”

Trump was the keynote speaker both nights, where he spun high fuel and energy costs, an intractable war of choice, and serial divorce papers served on us by our allies as accomplishments. Such is the power of spin when truth no longer holds currency.

It will shock readers to learn that Trump made the convention all about Trump, even though he is not running for office. What he is running for is his continued escape from accountability. If Democrats retake the House and Senate, the words ‘impeach,’ ‘corruption,’ and ‘Emoluments Clause’ will dominate headlines as they reacquaint federal governance with the rule of law.

Trump spoke for nearly two hours in a widely panned, rambling speech, using the spotlight to make false and familiar claims building up to the crescendo where said, “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 said the payments would be “very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders, or like last year when I gave our great members of the military $1,776.”

Both comparisons are laughably false. Corporations don’t give bonus distributions when earnings are down and the company is $40 trillion in debt, and he didn’t “give” service members $1,776 because Congress had already funded a $2.9 billion military housing allowance in July 2025 from which those funds were taken. A fan of renaming things, Trump simply renamed it a “Warrior Dividend,” and claimed it was his gift.

Trump still doesn’t understand how appropriations work

While most analysts assailed Trump’s $5k promise as an election-year sweetener at best and an illegal bribe at worst, the devastating takeaway was that Trump, after nearly six years on the job, still doesn’t understand how federal legislation works. Trump didn’t say he’d work with the Republican majority to authorize the payout, or help pass the law to drive it. A perennial mob boss, he said he would issue the checks, but only if he likes what he sees in the midterms.

After repeated promises to issue checks that never materialize, Trump still hasn’t learned that massive direct-payment plans require either fast-track legislation or formal congressional approval. Even though Republicans now control the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, Trump has been claiming checks that never were for two years:

• He promised Americans a $5000 stimulus checks, as "DOGE dividends.” The "DOGE dividend" stimulus checks proposal was officially scrapped after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) shut down on July 4, 2025, with its tail between its legs after failing to realize a fraction of the “savings” they promised.
• He promised $2,000 “tariff dividend” checks that never materialized. Not only did the Supreme Court strike down Trump’s illegal tariffs, the math didn’t work either: Financial experts pointed out that sending $2,000 to every non-high-income American would cost between $450 billion and $600 billion, even though actual annual tariff revenues were hovering at far less than that amount, roughly $200 billion to $300 billion.
• He promised $1,000 to $1,500 checks from expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies. Republicans diabolically scheduled health care cuts to take effect after the midterms, but the Health Savings Account promised to soften the blow never materialized. Republicans cut Medicaid and health care benefits from 10 million people but couldn’t figure out how to redirect federal savings from their cuts into any kind of compensation to the people losing coverage.

Trump’s convention speech demonstrated his continuing economic illiteracy

According to the Census Bureau, there are about 245 million U.S. citizens over 18. If Trump gave $5,000 to every adult U.S. citizen, it would cost well over $1.2 trillion, exploding the already astronomical federal deficit. To put this in perspective, the entire 2025 annual U.S. budget was $7 trillion; Trump would add another 20% to the national debt to keep his unchecked power. Just as he doesn’t understand who pays tariffs, he either doesn’t understand the basic relationship between national debt, the bond market, and interest rates, or he simply doesn’t care.

Trump also demonstrated ignorance about how a free market works, telling his fawning audience that, “The only caveat I have is that the dividend that we’re making must be spent in the United States of America...” This is more fantastical—or delusional—thinking. In a capitalist economy, currency cannot be stopped from moving freely; there is no way to track how or where cash is spent unless he intends to mark denominations ‘legal tender, but only inside the U.S.’

Given his un-American attempt to choose who gets to vote by controlling the mail, and his apparent belief that he can simply print money, wait for Trump to mint $5K Trump coins restricted to purchasing Trump.com products. Small wonder he is desperate for Republicans to win.

During his convention speech, Trump urged voters to “pretend that he is on the ballot.” Democrats should blast that line across billboards nationwide.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.