From 1h agoVance appears to walk back Trump claims that US citizens will receive $5,000 if Republicans win midtermsHello and welcome to the US politics live blog.Vice-president JD Vance appeared to partially row back on Donald Trump’s outlandish claims that every adult citizen in the US would receive $5,000 if the Republicans retain the House and Senate in the midterm elections.“If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000,” Trump told a roaring crowd, during a nearly two-hour long speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas in which he also urged voters to “pretend that I’m on the ballot”.But Vance, speaking after the president, suggested the so-called dividend payments would not go to the wealthy and that it could be paid for by US tariff revenues – though the suggested payment dwarfs what the US has taken in through the protectionist measures.Congress would need to approve or otherwise acquiesce to the payment. The sum would far exceed US tariff revenues even before the Supreme Court tossed much of the president’s tariff program last year.The White House has yet to release details on Trump’s announcement.Surrounded by supporters waving American flag placards, Trump claimed, without evidence, that his second term had been “the most successful two years, financially and every other way, in the history of the presidency”, but devoted much of his speech to fearmongering about what would happen should Democrats win the House or the Senate for the final two years of his presidency.“There is a crazy little sick cloud over our country,” Trump said. “We will defeat communism in America.”The president and Republicans are gambling that throwing a midterm convention – the first the GOP has ever held – can buoy the party, which is predicted to lose control of the House. Yet, Trump’s deep unpopularity among Americans – his approval rating is hovering at about 38% – meant many Republican candidates running in competitive races skipped the two-day confab entirely.Read the full story here:In other developments: