The White House did not respond to a message seeking details.
Congress would need to approve or otherwise acquiesce to the payment. The sum would far exceed U.S. tariff revenues even before the Supreme Court tossed much of the president’s tariff program last year.
The national debt last month topped $40 trillion for the first time.
Trump has frequently lamented that, during the modern era, the president’s party almost always loses seats in Congress during the midterms, and he has looked for unorthodox ways to defy the trend, including this week’s convention.
“We’re going to change that,” Trump said. “There’s no reason for it.”
Marc Goldwein, the senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank in Washington, said Trump has no authority send money to Americans without approval from Congress.
Goldwein added that dividends are something that companies pay when there’s a surplus, but the U.S. is running $2 trillion annual deficits and has $40 trillion in debt.
