Good Monday morning. I’m Isaac Saul, back in New Jersey after a week of oysters, lobster, campfires, family time, and talking about the future with the Tangle team in Maine. It was the first time we ever included family at a staff retreat, and the net effect was a level of bonding I don’t think we’d quite unlocked before. Many good things ahead.

Speaking of team bonding, we all had a “he did what?” moment when the president, speaking at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, promised $5,000 checks to every American, which is the focus of today’s newsletter. Plus, a reader question about logging in national forests. It’s a 14-minute read. 

Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Audrey Moorehead, Carina Pacheco, Russell Nystrom, Isaac Wood, and Bailey Saul edited or contributed to today’s newsletter.

9/11 reflections.

On Friday, we published a special reader mailbag reflecting on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and answering questions about what we’ve learned since that day. You can read it here.

Quick hits.

1. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling for a worldwide slowdown in artificial intelligence development, saying the technology is advancing at an unsafe pace. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and DeepMind Chairman Demis Hassabis endorsed Amodei’s message. (The comments)
2. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index increased 0.4% on a monthly basis in August and 3.4% on an annual basis, in line with economists’ expectations. (The numbers)
3. Fighting between the Yemeni government and Iran-backed Houthi rebels continued through the weekend after the Houthis captured a key Yemeni port city and an island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, in addition to striking Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure. (The fighting)
4. The leaders of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland met on Monday to discuss a plan to potentially leave the United Kingdom, declaring that the UK government should “prepare” for a change. (The meeting)
5. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the U.S. cyclosporiasis outbreak is over, ending the country’s largest-known outbreak of the illness. (The announcement)

Today’s topic.

Trump’s $5,000 dividends. At the Republican Party’s inaugural midterm convention on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said that his administration will send $5,000 to every U.S. adult citizen if the GOP retains control of the House and Senate in November’s elections. The president called the “Trump Dividend” a way for Americans to share in the economic strength that would result from Republican governance. 

A White House statement released after the speech said, “Like a successful company returning cash to its shareholders, the Trump Dividend is possible only because of President Trump. In his second term, he has unleashed trillions in new private investment, launched an unprecedented crackdown on government waste, and rebuilt American strength at home. That success belongs to the American people.”

With roughly 250 million U.S. adult citizens, the dividends would cost over $1.2 trillion, and disbursing the payments would likely require an act of Congress, though the president suggested that approval may not be necessary. On Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) expressed openness to the idea but did not endorse it, telling NBC, “Congress will work through it and find consensus on that like they have to do everything else.” Separately, Vice President JD Vance said that tariff revenue could cover part or all of the dividends while also suggesting that wealthy Americans may not be eligible to receive them. 

Democrats criticized the proposal as an attempted bribe. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) called the promise “corrupt and blatantly illegal,” and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said it was a “political bribe.” Others dismissed the idea as unserious. 

Many economists also expressed concerns, citing the rising national debt and persistent inflation above the Federal Reserve’s target rate. “Mr. Trump’s proposal would be worse than the Biden [Covid-19] stimulus in the sense that in 2026 the economy already has an inflation problem… Trump would be pouring gasoline on lit inflationary embers and hoping it wouldn’t ignite,” Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said. 

Today, you’ll hear from the left and right on President Trump’s dividend proposal, followed by Executive Editor Isaac Saul’s take.

In The Atlantic, David A. Graham argued “everything Trump wants to do causes inflation.”

“Injecting more than $1 trillion into the economy wouldn’t just blow up the deficit and national debt — it would also drive up prices,” Graham wrote. “Giving every American $5,000 to spend would create demand that couldn’t immediately be met, encouraging sellers to raise prices. I could quote lots of economists from left, right, and center who have already said that the payouts would be inflationary, but you could also just take it from Trump himself, who has repeatedly blamed inflation on high spending during the Biden administration.”

“A paradox of this moment is that inflation is a big reason for Trump’s cratering approval and his party’s sinking odds in the midterm elections, but nearly every one of his signature policy ideas is inflationary,” Graham said. “Perhaps Trump doesn’t understand that his ideas will drive up prices. Perhaps he does, but concludes that dangling free money in front of voters is worth the hit. Either way, new numbers released [on September 11] show that inflation rose 3.4% from one year ago.”

In Bloomberg, Mark Gongloff suggested the proposal wastes “considerable time and brainpower.”

“The very fact that this idea has been the subject of earnest discussion for the past several hours makes it at least enough of a reality to be dangerous,” Gongloff wrote. “It’s easy enough to guess that [Trump’s] goal Wednesday night wasn’t to spark an intellectual debate about the merits of a $5,000 dividend or the intricacies of campaign finance law. More likely, it was to distract everybody, however briefly, from his many spectacular failures, all of which explain why his Republican Party faces the risk of a generational wipeout in November.” 

“The examples of this are legion, and they grow by the day. When Trump renames things on the map, it’s not because of a lifelong interest in cartography. He is the class clown who, once he discovers that a bit gets a laugh, will hammer that bit again and again until it’s dead,” Gongloff said. “Anything to make you not think for five minutes about the implications of a self-harming trade war with our closest neighbor, ally, and trading partner. Or about how Trump Strait was actually functioning just fine before the self-harming war-war with Iran.”

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Erwin Chemerinsky said Trump’s promise is “protected speech.”

“President Donald Trump’s ‘promise’ to provide $5,000 to all adult Americans if the Republicans keep control of both houses of Congress sounds like an offer of a bribe, but it is speech protected by the First Amendment,” Chemerinsky wrote. “[Federal law] makes it illegal to make or offer to make an expenditure to any person to induce them to cast a vote, withhold a vote, or vote for or against a specific candidate. Trump’s statements did not relate to the election of any specific candidate, but instead promised the dividend if Republicans won majorities in the House and the Senate. 

“More importantly, Trump’s pledge was the type of speech that is common among candidates for office, which is protected by the First Amendment. Political candidates constantly pledge what they will do, if elected, to benefit their constituents,” Chemerinsky said. “I find Trump’s promise to be unseemly and absurd. It is effectively trying to buy votes from people by telling them that they will get a significant amount of money if they vote Republican. It’s also misleading because it implies that Trump could do something that he does not have the power to do. But under the First Amendment, even outrageous campaign promises are constitutionally protected speech.”

The Washington Examiner editorial board argued “against Trump’s $5,000 bribe.”

“Trump’s promise to send every adult citizen a $5,000 check, but only if Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate, should be treated as what it is: pure political theater with no real-world relationship to what Trump’s actual legislative agenda would be should Republicans beat the odds and maintain control of both chambers of Congress,” the board wrote. “Voters nevertheless have every reason to be frustrated with the economy. Inflation has eaten away purchasing power, energy prices are rising, and housing affordability is again deteriorating.”

“A $5,000 check may look like relief from those pressures, but if roughly 260 million adult citizens received one, the price tag would approach $1.3 trillion. Vice President JD Vance has suggested tariff revenue could help finance the plan, but existing tariff collections fall far short of the amount required. Without offsetting spending cuts, much of the difference would therefore be borrowed, which would drive inflation even higher,” the board said. “If Republicans do somehow pull off an electoral upset, they should oppose Trump’s plan or identify the $1.3 trillion in cuts to pay for it.”

In PJ Media, Scott Pinsker called Trump’s speech “a PR masterstroke.”

“The GOP’s dilemma is obvious: Over the long term, there’s no way in hell the Republican Party can compete with the socialists in the ‘free’ government giveaway game,” Pinsker wrote. “So Trump offers every adult $5,000; the socialists offer ‘free’ healthcare, education, childcare, housing, groceries, transportation, clothing, job training, an Obama phone, and most of Elon Musk’s money. (Because billionaires shouldn’t exist, you know.) Where does it end? Bottom line: The giveaway game is an unsustainable GOP strategy.”

“Policy concerns aside, the PR fallout [to Trump’s announcement] was dramatic. Swift, sudden, and utterly seismic. It was an absolute game-changer. In just one speech, President Trump reset the course of the entire 2026 midterms… Because of Trump’s speech, the focus now isn’t on what we lack — but what we’re going to get,” Pinsker said. “But eventually, the Dems will figure out that their best line of counterprogramming isn’t to attack it legally… so they’ll pivot to this: Trump’s promise doesn’t mean anything because he’s a liar who won’t deliver. After all, he promised us $5,000 checks before, and they never arrived.”

In Reason, Eric Boehm said the proposal “shows MAGA is out of ideas.”

“[Vice President] Vance’s response is, in many ways, more important than Trump's ridiculous pitch,” Boehm wrote. “That Vance is willing to play ball with such a ridiculous, unconservative, fiscally irresponsible idea is telling. After all, the vice president likes to position himself as a serious, thoughtful critic of the political and economic status quo. His supporters see him as the heir apparent to Trump — the guy with the political and policy chops to make this populist movement stick and to redefine the Republican Party and the conservative movement for the next generation.”

“This entire incident exposes how completely out of ideas the entire Trump political project is. The president promised that he would make life more affordable and that tariffs would deliver a ‘golden age’ for Americans, but the reality has fallen well short,” Boehm said. “Now, the president is literally promising to throw money at the problem, and Vance is dutifully playing along. This is the inevitable end of all populist movements, which begin by promising easy solutions to complex problems and eventually collapse when those ‘solutions’ are revealed to be grifts or oversimplifications.”

My take. Isaac Saul Executive Editor

Pundits and experts seem opposed to this idea across the board, which made me wonder what the best case for it would be. Payouts derived from tariffs would almost certainly be popular, and offering them as a campaign promise isn’t illegal. However, the pledge leaves me feeling uneasy — and not just because it’d be economically unwise.

Reminder: This is where we share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, leave a comment or reply to this email.

Unsurprisingly, this proposal did not garner a lot of unequivocal support.

I think the biggest reason for the idea’s lack of defenders is our current economic situation: We are still fighting inflation and our national debt has been increasing, and $5,000 payouts would almost certainly increase both inflation and the national debt. Add in the upcoming midterms and the whole idea feels even more untoward and unrealistic.

I don’t know that I have a whole lot to add to that. Instead, it struck me as an interesting intellectual exercise to make the best case for the $5,000 stimulus checks, based on some of the arguments made above and some I’m surprised more people aren’t making in Trump’s defense:

First and foremost, politics are already one giant bribe. Definitionally, a bribe is “money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust.” Saying “vote for us and you’ll get X” is the most standard form of politics there is. Popular Democratic politicians have run on everything from canceling student loan debt to eviction moratoriums to free healthcare. “We’ll give you $5,000 cash” is far more explicit, but as Erwin Chemerinsky noted (under “What the left is saying”), it’s not all that different. Actually, I could argue that cash is better than promising a new government program — it’s more efficient and direct, and it gives citizens full choice in how they spend those resources. Listening to Trump, I was reminded of British politician Rory Stewart’s TED Talk on how giving direct cash is the best way to solve poverty. 

Which is all to say something doesn’t quite sit well with me about Trump’s critics all — in unison — dismissing this as a bribe. Trump was overt, of course: Vote for us and we’ll pay you $5,000. But it’s not as if he said he’d only cut the check for Republican voters. He offered it to all Americans, whether they voted for him or not. Offering money to people only if they vote for your candidate is an obviously illegal quid pro quo — offering everyone money, however, is a different legal ball of yarn. 

In Brown v. Hartlage (1982), a Supreme Court case where a Kentucky county commissioner promised to reduce his salary if elected, the Court unanimously drew a line between policy promises and vote buying. “A candidate’s promise to confer some ultimate benefit on the voter, qua taxpayer, citizen, or member of the general public, does not lie beyond the pale of First Amendment protection,” Justice William Brennan Jr. wrote. Given that precedent, Trump is almost certainly within the bounds of the law (you might remember Elon Musk wasn’t charged for handing out $1 million checks to people during a campaign rally in Wisconsin in exchange for “taking the time to vote.”).

Second, as Eric Boehm argued (under “What the right is saying”), I’m guessing this idea is pretty popular. If you plucked 100 random voting-age Americans off the street and asked them if they’d support $5,000 direct cash payments to all Americans, what percentage would say yes? 50? 65? 85? Even if I largely align myself with the pundit class that’s unconvinced by policies like this, the gap between how many “normie” Americans would support this policy and how many pundits are feels notable — Trump’s ability to keep his finger on that pulse better than other politicians is one of his defining political strengths.

Third, Trump’s dividend theory is different from the stimulus theory of cash payments during the pandemic. This isn’t supposed to be financed by borrowed money or taxes but from payments collected by tariff revenue. It’s true that Trump has a math problem — $167 billion in tariff revenue vs. a $1.2 trillion price tag — but the structure of the deal is just different. The president is arguing that we are bringing in new revenue in the form of tariffs, which Kevin McCullough stressed in Townhall. Trump’s math problem just means the idea requires adjustments: He has to either lower the dividend amount or increase his tariffs to match the $1.2 trillion dividend price tag, and he can do this without borrowing more money.

So, putting all this together, Trump is flexing a standard practice in politics, he’s pitching something that is almost certainly popular, and he’s proposing paying for it with a source of revenue that his administration has significantly bolstered since he came into office. 

Of course, the strongest retorts are also obvious:

First, there is a difference between proposing popular policies and saying “if you keep us in office we’ll cut every American a $5,000 check.” Even if Trump’s promise seems legal, I don’t think it should be politically palatable. Trump’s supporters already elected him twice; if he thinks this policy would be good for the country, he has the power to enact it now. Insisting that Republicans must stay in power for voters to be rewarded doesn’t comport with basic reasoning. Additionally, it’s one of the surest signals yet that the president recognizes how unpopular his administration is. What kind of polling are Republicans seeing that has the head of the party resorting to literally offering people cash to vote for them? How insecure must they feel about running on the president’s record? 

Second, while the proposal might be popular, it’s also not novel — even within this presidency. The president floated a “DOGE dividend” in February of 2025 that never came to fruition, mostly because DOGE didn’t save anywhere near the money it said it would. He also promised a $2,000 dividend in November of 2025 that would be paid out from tariff revenue. He later revised the timeline for that stimulus from mid-2026 to the end of 2026, before ultimately announcing the $5,000 dividend that would only come if Republicans held the House and Senate. 

Which is all just to say he has repeatedly broken his word on purported dividends (aside from the $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” sent to roughly 1.5 million service members last December). Most obviously, if Trump actually wanted to give every American $5,000, Republicans could do it right now. When asked on Fox News why he wouldn’t just cut the checks now, his only response was “because, Democrats.” Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House. They have had plenty of success defending their executive excesses before the Supreme Court. There is no reason to wait, unless — of course — you were using the money to offer voters a de facto bribe because you were otherwise unpopular.

Third, this policy proposal would be devastating economically. $5,000 per adult American citizen is, as many have noted, over $1.2 trillion. Trump plainly does not have the tariff revenue to pay for that, which means he’d have to borrow more money at a time when the interest on our debt is already the federal government’s third-largest expense. If he wants to raise tariffs even more, that’d be most devastating for U.S. importers (and consumers), who are the ones that actually pay them. We now know the post-Covid stimulus was a major driver of inflation that we’re still dealing with today, a problem plenty of economists warned about. Trump himself criticized President Biden’s continuation of Covid spending. This would amount to a stimulus package of that size, at a time when the economy doesn’t require stimulus and inflation is still an issue. It’s truly hard to fathom. If you think economic sentiment is bad now, another price surge would make it historically awful. 

So, in sum, the lack of expert and lawmaker support for this proposal probably makes sense: Trump’s numbers don’t add up, the policy would be economically devastating, it borders on illegal, and it’s a carbon copy of promises he has already failed to deliver. That’s plenty of reason not to support it — and plenty of reason to have healthy skepticism it’d ever happen, even if Republicans keep the House and Senate. 

Take the survey: When could the $5,000 payouts be sent? Let us know. 

Disagree? That’s okay. Our opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we’ll consider publishing your feedback.

Your questions, answered.

Why is POTUS letting logging companies cut down protected forests in the USA?

— Christian from Palatine, IL

Managing Editor Ari Weitzman: That’s partially what’s happening, but describing it that way leaves out a lot of detail. In August, the Trump administration filed a proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which prevents roads from being built in designated areas of national forests. The proposal garnered a lot of criticism and consternation — The New York Times described it like this: “Trump Administration Moves to Allow Logging in Pristine National Forests.” 

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, whose department oversees the Forest Service, defended the rule as a way to prevent wildfires. “For too long, outdated restrictions have kept tens of millions of forested acres off-limits to the very treatments that improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk to our communities,” Rollins said. In a nutshell, the administration believes that allowing national forests to build forest roads in protected areas will make it easier to respond to wildfires when they occur. 

The Trump administration also says that rescinding this rule will allow the managers of individual forests to make the best decisions for themselves. That means Alaska’s remote Tongass Forest (which is at a very low risk of wildfires) may not decide to build new roads, but Montana’s Kootenai National Forest (which is also a target for increased logging) probably will. Meanwhile, any national forest in Idaho or Colorado will not be subject to this rule because those states have already set restrictions on new road developments in these areas.

Of course, thinning forests for wildfire prevention goes hand-in-hand with logging. Consider Kootenai in Montana: A judge threw out an attempted logging project there in 2025 partially because of the roadless rule, siding with environmentalists seeking to protect grizzly bear habitats. Rescinding that rule will allow projects like that to move forward, and at a time when we’re in a trade war with the country we get 84% of our softwood lumber imports from, those projects could increase rapidly. That would mean negative environmental effects like habitat destruction, pollution of drinking water, and even — maddeningly — increased wildfires.

Ultimately, the devil will be in the details. Developing wide, paved roads through pristine forests would be harmful to those areas — even to the beetle-infested stands of dead wood often invoked in these discussions. However, fire-prone forests would undeniably benefit from smaller access roads that provide fuel breaks and access points for firefighters. I live directly next to a Vermont state forest, and I personally sit on the board of an LLC that manages 140 acres of woodland area. We are actually required by the state to cut down a certain amount of trees each year, and forest roads — unpaved, uneven paths that are often called “fire roads” — help us do that. 

There’s plenty of reason to believe this roadless rule is being promoted to the benefit of the logging industry and the detriment of national forests. If the rule really does end up putting decision-making power in the hands of those managing these forests, though, there’s also plenty of reason to retain some guarded optimism.

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The extras.

• One year ago today we had just published Isaac’s Friday essay on why his son gives him hope.
• The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter was FinanceBuzz’s rundown of discounts on everyday services and products. 
• Nothing to do with politics: When is the best time to drink coffee?
• Our last survey: 2,437 readers responded to our survey on Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-PA) future in the Democratic Party, with 42% saying they think Fetterman will leave the party before the 2028 Pennsylvania Senate primary. “If he wants to avoid getting primaried out of the 2028 race, he has no option but to switch,” one respondent said. “Fetterman could become a true independent and a swing vote in the Senate,” said another.

Have a nice day.

In 2016, Sonya Passi founded FreeForm on the belief that she could fight domestic abuse by giving women in abusive relationships more economic agency. Passi put this theory to the test — she started by helping survivors launch small businesses, then began handing out direct checks of up to $1,500 during the pandemic. Ten years and $10 million later, FreeForm’s new impact report shows Passi’s idea is working. Among the survivors it surveyed, 94% reported stronger social wellbeing and those in financial crisis fell from roughly half to 10%. “I have learned to have my own agency with money,” one survivor said. “For the first time in my life, I feel safe and trust myself with financial choices.” Good Good Good has the story.