Fact check: President Donald Trump on $5,000 bonus, victory margin, medical debt

TOPEKA — President Donald Trump renewed during a Kansas political rally a promise to send $5,000 to every adult citizen of the United States if Republicans retained control of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

“If the Republicans win, you each will have $5,000 in your pocket,” Trump said. “The only caveat on the $5,000 is that the Trump dividend, you must spend the money in the United States of America.”

He said the cost to the federal government would be “approximately $1 trillion,” but the obligation would be paid with revenue from a “record-setting $22.2 trillion that’s being invested in the United States right now.” He has mentioned use of tariff revenue to pay the bonuses.

Trump, speaking at a Park City rally in support of U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall and in opposition to Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton, incorrectly portrayed the cost of payments to 240 million to 250 million people. The actual cost would be closer to $1.2 trillion.

And PBS said Trump misstated the level of foreign investment in the United States. Instead of more than $22 trillion, economic data placed the number at $11.2 trillion.

The arrangement outlined by Trump would be off the table if Democrats seized just one of the chambers Nov. 3. Even if the GOP prevailed and held both chambers, there was no certainty the appropriation would clear the House and Senate. Of special concern would be the 60-vote bipartisan margin required in the Senate.

CNN reported infusion of more than $1 trillion in federal payments would increase consumer demand for goods and services and trigger a spike in inflation.

Margin of victory

Before boarding a helicopter and the flight to Wichita, Trump spoke at the White House about Marshall’s campaign in Kansas and the midterm struggle of other red-state Republicans.

The president told reporters he anticipated the first-term GOP senator from Kansas would prevail, but he conceded the contest against Hamilton was unexpectedly tight.

“It’s a close race. It shouldn’t be,” Trump said. “As you know, I won by a tremendous amount, like 25 to 30 points. I won by a lot.”

Trump exaggerated his margin of victory in Kansas. He ran for president in 2016, 2020 and 2024 and carried the state of Kansas each time.

In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton by a margin of 20.6 percentage points. In the campaign against Joe Biden, who was elected president in 2020, Trump’s margin slipped to 14.6 points. In 2024, Trump defeated Kamala Harris by a margin of 16.1 points.

Trump earned a low of 56.2% and a high of 57.1% of the vote within Kansas during the three election cycles. Those double-digit victories didn’t equal the Kansas showing by Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon or George W. Bush.

In 1952, Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson by 38.2 percentage points. That contest in Kansas was heavily influenced by Eisenhower having lived in Abilene during his youth.

Reagan crushed Walter Mondale in 1984 by 32.6 percentage points. Nixon outran George McGovern by 29.5 points in 1972, while Bush topped John Kerry by 25.4 points in 2004.

‘Worst thing they did’

Trump addressed his administration’s immigration agenda and criticized Biden for enabling an avalanche of people without proper documentation to enter the United States.

“The worst thing they did to us is allowing 25 million people into the country totally unchecked, totally unvetted, and many of them were hardcore criminals,” Trump said.

Politifact, a nonprofit project of the Poynter Institute, said the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally during Biden’s tenure ranged from 11 million to 12 million. Other organizations offered a range between 11 million to 16 million, rather than the 25 million claimed by Trump.

Falsehood on debt collections

In a Truth Social post and during the rally, Trump defended Marshall, a former OB-GYN in Great Bend, from criticism initiated by a news report in the New York Times that said Marshall’s attorneys filed lawsuits against hundreds of people for unpaid medical debt. Some of Marshall’s patients didn’t appear in court, leading to the arrest of at least 80 people.

Trump condemned Hamilton, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, for making Marshall’s debt-collection tactics a campaign issue.

Trump’s post in support of Marshall: “He is absolutely great, a wonderful person, given a ‘bum rap’ because he was mandated by law to request money owed from patients. If he didn’t make those requests, he would be breaking the law and subject to criminal liability and arrest.”

Trump’s statement about a mandated duty to seek collection of debt was false. Under federal and state law, no legal requirement exists to obligate a doctor or healthcare provider to pursue patient debt. No provision in law required a debt collector to ask judges to issue arrest warrants for individuals who didn’t appear in court to answer a lawsuit.