Trump signs executive order renaming Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump defended his proposal to give Americans a $5,000 “dividend” — which some dismissed as a stunt or bribe — seeming to suggest it as a “reward” for voters who he says endured the Biden administration.

The comments came in response to ABC News pressing him on why he would need to offer such a payment if his economic policies are working.

Trump was asked on the tarmac on his way back to Washington, D.C. — after he closed out night two of the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas — whether the proposed payment amounted to an incentive for voters to turn out in the midterm elections.

The proposed payment to all American adults — which some estimated would cost $1.3 trillion — was conditioned on Republicans retaining control of both houses of Congress in the midterms and the money being spent in the U.S.

The White House issued a press release on Thursday that suggests the checks could come from commitments the Trump administration has received from companies to invest in the private sector. It’s unclear how those investments, which have not yet materialized, would be made into dividend checks for Americans.

“The U.S. is still $40 trillion in debt, if your economic policies are working, why do you need an incentive for people to turn out to vote?” ABC News asked the president directly.

Trump rejected the premise that the payment was intended to encourage voter turnout.

“I think what you’re going to do — I didn’t do it for turning out the vote, I did it as a reward for people having to put up with five years-four years of horrible situation caused by Biden,” Trump said.

Trump then pointed to what he described as problems with the Biden administration’s economic and immigration policies.

“I mean, they had to put up with the four years, and they carried on for at least a half an additional year with horrible, just a horrible thing that Biden did to our country,” Trump said. “And that’s not only just from an economic standpoint. You look at the border, you look at the crime, and now we’ve got it under control.”

“But what, what a period of time,” Trump continued. “It’s almost a reward for the people having to put up with Biden’s policy.”

Trump has said the proposed $5,000 payments would be funded through what he has described as “tremendous growth.”

“We have tremendous growth. We have growth like no country has ever seen before,” Trump said. “We have trillions of dollars coming in, and that will end up being not a very big problem at all.”

Many members of Congress have expressed opposition to Trump’s plan, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slamming the move.

“Trump’s presidency is so failed and broken, he is resorting to trying to bribe the American people for their votes,” Schumer wrote in a social media post.

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu, who serves as the vice chairman of the House Democratic caucus, joked in a social media post that “If Democrats flip the House and Senate everyone will get a $10,000 dividend, and a pony, and free ice cream for life.”

Outgoing Republican Rep. Thomas Massie said he fears the payments would cause more inflation and accused Trump of trying to buy votes.

“Frankly, I’m insulted by the notion that my vote this November could be bought for 5k,” Massie wrote in a post on X.

Just last year, the president declared that every American would get a $2,000 rebate check paid for by tariff revenue.

“A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” he wrote on his social media platform in November 2025. That has not happened yet.

Even the most generous accounting, such as Penn Wharton’s Budget Model, estimates the tariffs brought in roughly $300 billion. And that’s not counting the money the Treasury has had to pay back to American companies after the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s tariff regime illegal. As a result of those debts, the government is currently paying out more in tariff revenue than it is collecting.

ABC News’ Justin Fishel and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.

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The Trump administration on Sunday filed another emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to immediately implement new U.S. Postal Service mail ballot rules for November.

The application is not meaningfully different from the request the administration filed on Sept. 3, but comes in response to the federal judge handling the legal battle over new U.S. Postal Service mail ballot rules extending her block of the rules for the November midterm elections in an order issued on Friday, again finding them likely unlawful.

Judge Indira Talwani’s temporary order, which had been set to expire on Sept. 10, is now in place indefinitely unless the a higher court allows the Trump administration to put the rules into effect.

The judge found that immediate implementation of the rules this close to the November election, prompted by President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at tightening access to mail ballots, “threatens disenfranchisement of millions of United States citizens who seek to vote by mail.”

Talwani concluded that the rules, which mandate nationwide mail ballot design and review requirements and state submission of a voter information database to USPS, are “unconstitutional where it intrudes not only on Congress’s  Elections Clause powers but also that power left to the States.”

The decision ups the ante for the U.S. Supreme Court, which had already been asked to weigh in on Talwani’s preliminary injunction. A decision is expected as soon as the coming week.

Time is of the essence since some states have already begun mailing ballots for the fall election.

Trump, who has pushed unfounded claims of widespread mail ballot fraud, wants states to report to USPS basic voter information, such as a voter’s name and home address, attached to a unique barcode on every mail-in ballot distributed. Postal workers would then only deliver ballots addressed to voters who appear on the state-provided list.

Following the publication of the regulations last month, dozens of Democratic state attorneys general sued the Trump administration after an earlier lawsuit was blocked by the Supreme Court, which said at the time that the challenge was premature since the regulations hadn’t been finalized.

Judge Talwani wrote in her opinion Friday that the dispute was now ripe for judicial intervention.

“Nothing is hypothetical,” she said of the alleged harm to states, voters and voter advocacy groups ahead of the November election.

In its latest appeal to the justices, the Trump administration insisted the rules impose only “modest” ballot design and review requirements on states and that a requirement to submit name, address, and barcode information of intended recipients is not onerous or intrusive.

The states challenging the USPS rule have until Tuesday at 10 a.m. to formally respond before the Supreme Court makes a decision.

The states and voter advocacy groups have argued that the new USPS regulations are an attempt by the Trump administration to federalize elections, which are historically and constitutionally managed by each state, and make it harder to vote by mail for everyday citizens.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has escalated his economic pressure against Canada following its retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., issuing a series of proclamations Tuesday night to ban certain Canadian alcohol, dairy products and motorcycles from entering America, and imposing his 50% tariff on more goods.   

The ban on the importation of some alcohol, dairy, motorcycles and mopeds would take effect on Sept. 29. at 12:01 a.m. ET.

“President Trump is doing this to make sure again that we keep a level playing field, deter retaliation, and of course protect American production,” a senior White House official told reporters. 

The ban covers sparkling grape wine, malt beer, rice wine or sake, Irish and Scotch whiskies, and pisco and singani – as long as they are packaged. Other types of alcoholic beverages that are banned include tequila and mezcal if they are in containers under four liters.

The dairy now prohibited from entering the U.S. from Canada include multiple types of whey protein. Other products include cane molasses and non-alcoholic beer.

Additionally, Trump is subjecting an additional list of goods to his 50% tariffs, including golf carts and similar motor vehicles, cotton mattresses, bamboo and rattan furniture and additional types of aluminum and cheese products, according to the proclamation.

The president is, however, also removing several Canadian goods from the 50% tariffs, including non-white cement, toilet and face tissue, bed sheets and other household and hospital articles made of paper pulp, fishing rods and their accessories, chemically pure sugars and road salt.

The senior official defended the removal of these products from the tariff list saying Trump “has taken a lot more nuance when it comes to naturally occurring items or natural resources not available” in the U.S., pointing to the rock salts as an example. 

“There’s a region of the country that relies on rock salt from Canada in those mines, and it’s not easily replaced,” the senior official said. 

The updates to the list of goods being tariffed will go into effect in “one week,” the official said.  

In another move in response to Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on Tuesday, Trump directed the U.S. General Services Administration and the U.S. Trade Representative to ban Canada from U.S. government procurement markets through which the government buys foreign goods. 

“I am hereby directing the GSA, working with the USTR, to take all necessary steps to REMOVE Canadian-origin products from GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules unless Canada restores full and fair reciprocity for American Farmers and Companies,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Those schedules account for more than 50 BILLION DOLLARS a year.” 

It’s unclear how long it would take to remove Canadian products from U.S. government purchasing contracts.

ABC News has reached out to the White House and the GSA for comment. 

The senior official said Trump’s plans to impose 50% tariffs on Canadian autos on Jan. 1 remains, but that it’s possible the warring sides can reach an agreement. 

“Whether we can find alternative resolutions at the table, I would say, I mean, yes, that’s always a possibility,” the senior official said. “I think there’s interest on the Canadian side in finding an alternative pathway, and as always, we remain– we remain open,” they later added. 

In response to the latest move by the White House, Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Canada is assessing the measures.

“As has been the case for 18 months, our absolute priority remains to protect and support Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses in the face of these unjustified measures,” LeBlanc said in a statement.

“When the United States is ready to engage in dialogue, our government will work in good faith and constructively toward establishing safer and mutually beneficial trade relations that fully respect Canadian sovereignty,” the statement concluded.

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