President Donald Trump has promised $5,000 to every American adult if Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the November midterm elections. The pledge has raised questions about its legality, cost and where the money would come from. Is it legal? Federal law prohibits offering payments in exchange for votes and separately restricts promises of federally funded benefits in return for political support. US President Donald Trump's offer would appear to skirt these prohibitions because it is more in the nature of a campaign promise and would apply to all adult Americans regardless of how they voted. Any such payment would in any case require congressional authorisation, as the US Constitution bars the president from spending Treasury funds without an appropriation made by law. Trump has made similar pledges in the past which never came about, including promising Americans $2,000 checks from tariff revenues and $5,000 checks from savings made from drastic federal job cuts. Read moreTrump says he'll give Americans $5,000 each if Republicans win midterm elections How much would it cost? There are about 276.8 million adults aged 18 and over in the United States in 2026, and doling out $5,000 to each would come to $1.384 trillion. Trump said he was targeting "every American". Restricting the payments to US citizens would reduce that figure to about $1.27 trillion. During the Covid pandemic, Congress approved payouts to income-eligible tax filers and their dependents only, a narrower approach that would lower the cost further. The three rounds of pandemic stimulus checks approved in 2020 and 2021 came to about $814 billion in total, according to federal oversight data.