Lutnick says Trump’s $5,000 checks for Americans wouldn’t rely on taxpayer funds

President Donald Trump’s promised $5,000 “dividend” for all U.S. adults would not be paid for with taxpayer dollars, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Thursday.

“It’s not tax money,” Lutnick told NBC News in a wide-ranging interview at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, where he discussed the attacks and a variety of economic issues.

He claimed that the administration could “earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out, not from the deficit and not from taxpayers.”

Trump this week pledged that if Republicans held control of the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections, his administration would issue a “dividend” to all American adults as a reward.

“Together we’re going to deliver that plan and we’re going to pay that money to the Americans, and not from taxpayer money,” Lutnick said.

He referenced the Trump Platinum Card, an upcoming Commerce Department program allowing wealthy individuals to sign up to pay $5 million in order to extend their U.S. visas for an additional 270 days.

“We have a waitlist of more than 100,000 people who want to come,” Lutnick said. “That’s $500 billion.”

Lutnick also cited an investment in Intel the administration made last year. “Everybody knows we…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business