The 79-year-old U.S. president appeared momentarily confused when questioned about the proposed $2,000 payments.
Donald Trump has drawn criticism after seemingly forgetting his pledge to issue “$2,000 checks to Americans.” Over the past several months, Trump had repeatedly promoted the idea of tariff rebate payments, saying late last year that many Americans could receive the money by mid-2026.
He argued that the plan was feasible because of the revenue generated by his trade tariffs, even suggesting that the U.S. was earning so much from them that he could afford to send every American a $2,000 check. However, there are now doubts about whether such payments will happen anytime soon.
During an interview in the Oval Office last week with The New York Times, correspondents Katie Rogers and Tyler Pager questioned Trump about the tariffs and reminded him of his earlier promises to deliver the rebate checks, prompting visible uncertainty in his response.
Rogers asked: “You’ve promised $2,000 checks to Americans based off of your tariff revenues. When can they expect those?”
However, Trump, seemingly baffled, responded with: “I did do that? When did I do that?”
“Well, I mean, your -,” the journalist asked, but the world leader interjected to say: “Yeah, I’m thinking. Well, I did $1,776 for the military.”
Pager then followed up with: “When will those Americans get those checks?”
And Trump replied: “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.”
When asked if he would need Congressional approval, Trump responded: “No, I don’t believe we do. We have it coming in from other sources.”
Trump made his $2000 dividends clear back in November when he issued a strong message about his tariffs on Truth Social.
On social media, he wrote : “People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k’s are Highest EVER.
“We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion.”
The President added: “Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”
And now, reacting to his confusion over the whole thing, social media users have expressed their annoyance.
One X, user brutally wrote: “You were never getting $2000 tariff rebate checks, the same way you were never getting $5000 DOGE refund checks. But Trump doubled his family’s net worth. Congratulations, you got conned.”
Meanwhile, a second added: “Trump forgets he promised to give everyone $2000 from his tariffs, then says they’re coming anyway. Even he can’t keep track of all his lies.”
And a third agreed: “And here we go again – he makes a big promise, his idiot followers believe him, then he denies or conveniently ‘forgets’ he made that promise.”
