An anchor on right-wing news network Newsmax flat-out asked whether President Donald Trump’s promise of $5,000 for every American adult if Republicans retain power in the midterm elections is “basically a bribe.”

“National Report” host E.D. Hill posed the question Thursday to Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), who mostly evaded the question.

“Well, it’s an interesting plan,” he responded. “I just first heard of it last night. You know, I’m a numbers guy, so we’ll have to go through the numbers on that and see where we are.”

Trump promised the payout, which he said would be known as the “Trump Dividend,” during the GOP’s first midterm convention Wednesday in Dallas.

Such a payment would require congressional approval and most likely cost more than $1 trillion — during a time when the U.S. national debt reached a record-high $40 trillion last month, according to The Associated Press.

Shortly after Trump proposed the payout, Vice President JD Vance suggested the payments would not go to the wealthy.

Some, like BBC correspondent Sarah Smith, have questioned the legality of Trump’s promise.

“It’s not clear that it’s legal to make a promise like that, because it is against the law to try and offer a payment to anybody to influence how they’re going to vote,” she said.

Trump’s payment pledge comes after he repeatedly broke promises to send cash payments to Americans, such as last year when he said he would issue $2,000 tariff refund checks. The president also previously floated the idea of giving Americans money from the savings promised by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

Neither came to fruition.

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