President Donald Trump is considering sending rebate checks to Americans using revenue from higher tariffs as he seeks to move on from the firestorm surrounding Jeffrey Epstein.
After declaring that “people should really focus on how well the country is doing” rather than his links to the deceased child sex trafficker, Trump floated the idea of cash relief while talking up his latest trade deals on Friday.
“We’re thinking about that actually—we have so much money coming in, we’re thinking about a little rebate,” he told reporters at the White House.
“We have so much money coming in from tariffs that a little rebate for people of a certain income level might be very nice.”
U.S. Treasury data shows that revenue from tariffs surpassed $100 billion for the first time this financial year, reflecting higher levies imposed by the Trump administration’s policies.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that he expects the growth to continue, predicting that the U.S. government could collect $2.8 trillion in tariff revenue over the next ten years.
While the administration has floated the idea of a rebate before, Trump’s comments come as he now seeks to recalibrate from the Epstein saga, and turn the public’s focus to traditional GOP strongsuits such as the economy and immigration.
But despite attempts to quell the issue, it doesn’t seem to be abating, both in Washington, where House Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday to vote on the release of the Epstein files, and in battleground states that will be critical at next year’s midterm elections.
“It’s resonating in the ‘real world’ as you might say, only because it’s pretty obvious that no one knows what they’re doing about it,” Pennsylvania-based GOP consultant Christopher Nicholas told The Daily Beast.
“And this type of issue just slices right through normal partisan lines. Abusing children is something the entire society agrees is terrible and wrong, and it seems like this case has been bungled from the start.”
Trump was a known associate of Epstein’s, who died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges involving underage girls.
His former girlfriend and associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was subsequently jailed for 20 years on federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy for helping Epstein recruit and abuse underage girls.
Despite insisting this month that the case was closed, the administration met with her on Thursday and Friday, prompting fears that it is seeking to do a deal with the sex offender in exchange for information that helps the president.
Speaking to reporters before leaving for a trip to Scotland on Friday, Trump said the public should focus on Epstein’s other associates, name-checking people such as former president Bill Clinton and former Harvard president and ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.
He even offered to provide a “list” of people to scrutinize, which he said would include “hedge fund guys” who lived with Epstein. The White House is yet to provide the Daily Beast with such a list.
“People should really focus on how well the country is doing, or they should focus on the fact that Barack Hussein Obama led a coup,” Trump told reporters, referencing the administration’s wild claim that the former president engaged in a conspiracy to subvert Trump’s 2016 election victory.
“Or they should focus on the fact that Larry Summers from Harvard, that Bill Clinton, who you know very well, and lots of other friends – really close friends – of Jeffrey Epstein should be spoken about. They should speak about that, because they don’t talk about them, they talk about me. I have nothing to do with that guy.”
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