.png?trim=0,0,0,0&width=1200&height=800&crop=1200:800 "Burger King plans massive hiring blitz in push to reinvigorate brand – UK Times")
President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested that his government will send Americans $2,000 tariff dividend checks, but it hasn’t happened yet, and it’s unclear if it ever will.
During an interview with NBC Nightly News’ Tom Llamas on Wednesday, Trump was asked which Americans will receive those checks, and when. Trump promised the checks during a Truth Social posting spree in November 2025.
“We’d make it — I — I’m gonna — I’m looking at it very seriously. I’m the only one can do it because I’m taking in hundreds of billions of dollars of money from tariffs —” Trump told Llamas.
Llamas jumped in and pressed him for a specific answer, asking Trump if he “can promise some Americans will get those checks?”
“Oh yeah, sure. I can — I can do that,” Trump said, before immediately contradicting himself. “I haven’t made the commitment yet, but I may make the commitment.”
Llamas, seemingly confused by the answer, asked Trump if that means that the checks aren’t “a done deal.”
Trump then began talking about the $1,776 “warrior dividend” that was paid to military members and refused to acknowledge Llamas’ attempts to pin him down on whether or not everyday Americans will receive a tariff dividend check.
Trump has falsely claimed that the $1,776 paid to the military was raised by tariffs. The money was actually taken from supplemental housing funding that military members were already going to receive.
Wednesday’s interview was not the first time Trump has seemed reluctant to revisit the tariff checks.
The president was asked by The New York Times for an update on the checks in a wide-ranging interview in January. His initial reply was: “I did do that? When did I do that?” according to the transcript.
“The tariff money is so substantial,” he said after being pressed further. “That’s coming in, that I’ll be able to do $2,000 sometime. I would say toward the end of the year.”
Previously, Trump told reporters that the checks would be distributed “probably in the middle of next year, a little bit later than that.”
In a follow-up question, Trump was pressed by The NYT about whether he needed Congress to approve the checks.
“No, I don’t believe we do,” he said. “We have it coming in from other sources.”
Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, seems to think otherwise.
“We will see. We need legislation for that,” he told Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures in mid-November when asked about the checks.
Bessent later told ABC News that tariff revenue could come in many forms — indicating it may not necessarily be a paycheck akin to the first Trump administration’s stimulus checks.
