President Donald Trump joked that the $5,000 payments he’s promised U.S. adults would buy little more than “a hamburger and maybe a small dessert” at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, a week before midterm elections dominated by voters’ concerns over affordability.
Trump has pledged $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans win both the House and Senate, specifying the money must be spent in the U.S.
“Go to Florida, go to any one of our great places. You can even come to Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said at a rally in Texas on Tuesday. “The problem is that for $5,000, the most you’ll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert.”
The president also joked that, “I’m not even sure you could buy that. No, don’t go there. That’s not a good place if you’re price-conscious.”
Cost of living has been the dominant issue heading into the Nov. 3 vote, with 84% of U.S. adults surveyed in an AP-NORC poll earlier this month naming it among the most important issues in deciding their vote, and 79% disapproved of Trump’s handling of it. Polls broadly show Democrats favored in the national popular vote for the House, and competitive in a series of red-state Senate races that will decide control of the upper chamber.
Some economists have warned that the one-time direct payment would do little to ease affordability pressures, and could exacerbate inflation at a time when many Americans are already feeling strained. Prices for necessities like gasoline and groceries have been a particular pain point for most U.S. households.
Sending $5,000 to every adult citizen would cost roughly $1.2 trillion and require Congressional approval.
The president has also in the past made similar promises of delivering cash payments to Americans, which did not materialize. Less than two months before the 2020 election, Trump pledged 33 million Medicare beneficiaries $200 prescription-drug cards “in coming weeks” — but the cards never went out.
The president’s White House renovation has also become a campaign-trail foil. Speaking at an Ohio rally last week, former President Barack Obama said Trump had “got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” saying, “there’s gold everywhere.”
Trump on Monday defended his White House redesign and blamed Obama for failing to address the needed repairs. “Guys like Obama don’t see it. You don’t see dirt. He doesn’t see filth. He doesn’t see broken ornaments on a building … And for you to say it’s a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president.”
—CNBC’s Davis Giangiulo and Dan Mangan contributed to this article.