Trump Asks ‘When Did I Do That’ When Asked About His Promise to Send Americans $2K Tariff Checks

President Donald Trump appeared to briefly pause when asked to revisit an earlier comment about tariffs and potential rebate checks.

In an Oval Office interview last week with The New York Times, White House correspondents Katie Rogers and Tyler Pager questioned the president about tariffs and his past remarks suggesting Americans could receive payments funded by tariff revenue.

“You’ve promised $2,000 checks to Americans based off of your tariff revenues. When can they expect those?” Rogers asked in the interview, published Sunday, Jan. 11.

Trump responded by challenging the premise: “I did do that? When did I do that?”

Rogers began to reply, “Well, I mean, your —,” before Trump interjected, adding, “Yeah, I’m thinking. Well, I did $1,776 for the military.”

On Dec. 18, Trump and the Department of Defense announced that nearly 1.5 million service members would receive a “Warrior Dividend” of $1,776, attributing the funding to the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Pager then asked about the timing for the broader public: “When will those Americans get those checks?”

“Well, I am going to,” Trump said. “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.”

Asked whether he would need Congressional approval to issue the checks, Trump, 79, replied: “No, I don’t believe we do. We have it coming in from other sources.”

Trump first floated the idea of $2,000 rebate checks in early November, when he posted to Truth Social, “People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!”

He said the U.S. was taking in “Trillions of Dollars,” and suggested a tariff “dividend” could be sent to American citizens. “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high-income people!) will be paid to everyone,” he wrote in a Nov. 9 Truth Social post.

On Nov. 10, the nonprofit Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said the government would need around $600 billion to issue checks to Americans who would qualify.

However, on Nov. 12, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told ABC News that he and the president had not discussed a tariff rebate for the American public.

He also warned Americans to save any rebate money to help avoid inflation concerns. “Maybe we could persuade Americans to save that,” Bessent said in a Nov. 18 Fox News interview, Axios reported.

Trump later wrote in a Nov. 24 Truth Social post that tariff “amounts payable to the USA will SKYROCKET, over and above the already historic levels of dollars received,” adding that Americans have not yet felt “the full benefit of the Tariffs.”

That post also referenced an upcoming Supreme Court decision on whether the tariffs are illegal under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The IEEPA, passed by Congress in 1977, “provides the President broad authority to regulate a variety of economic transactions following a declaration of national emergency.”

If the Supreme Court rules the tariffs are illegal, the Trump administration would have to refund the tariff revenue to the entitled companies. The decision can be announced as soon as Wednesday, Jan. 14, the BBC reports.

Bessent told Reuters on Jan. 9 that if the ruling finds the tariffs illegal, the Treasury Department will be able to refund the nearly $774 billion in tax refunds. He added that any return of funds would likely be spread out over weeks or even up to a year.