Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale has a reality check for President Donald Trump’s latest proposal to give Americans cash.
“For the record, I am hugely in favor of winning the midterms, and love much about this admin, but am strongly against bread and circus bribes,” Lonsdale wrote on X.
Lonsdale, who endorsed Trump ahead of the 2024 election, had a pithy comparison for Trump’s idea of sending $5,000 checks to adult US citizens if Republicans retain control of Congress this November. Lonsdale invoked the Roman satirist Juvenal’s famous phrase, which translates to “bread and circuses,” referring to the use of food and entertainment to placate the masses.
In another post, Lonsdale questioned why the administration would stop at $5,000.
“Why not 5 million USD to everyone?” he wrote in a reply. “I don’t see why the average person shouldn’t get to be rich – we can just print money, right?”
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Over the last few years, Lonsdale has cemented himself as a major GOP donor.
Trump unveiled the proposal on Wednesday during a rollicking address to the Republican Party’s first-ever midterm convention. Trump is hoping his presence will boost the GOP, which is aiming to defy historical trendlines of the president’s party losing ground in the House.
Prediction markets overwhelmingly favor Democrats’ chances of retaking the House, though the Senate remains much closer. The map of contested Senate seats is also much more favorable to Republicans.
Trump likely could not issue the checks alone. House Speaker Mike Johnson previously said Trump would need congressional approval to send Americans tariff checks, another proposal that did not come to fruition.
During an interview with Fox News, Vice President JD Vance alluded to tariff revenues when asked about how the government would cover the estimated cost of over $1 trillion to pay for the Trump dividend.
“What the president just saying is if you keep it going, to the American people, if you keep us in power and allow us to continue to do these things, then you’re going to share in some of the benefit of this incredible wealth that we’re creating in the United States of America,” Vance said.
The cost of the checks would easily surpass what the US has brought in from tariffs. The Treasury Department reported that it collected roughly $194.9 billion in tariffs in FY25 and another $154.5 billion in this fiscal year. Those numbers don’t account for the $100 billion the US has paid out in tariff refunds after the US Supreme Court found Trump overstepped his authority.
Congressional Democrats quickly mocked the idea.
“There’s no one in the country that thinks somehow this new dividend is actually going to happen,” Rep. Robert Garcia of Texas, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told reporters. “What the American people actually want is the president to actually focus on lowering their cost of gas, groceries, and expand healthcare.”
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