The Week: Trump’s Midterm Bribery | September 11, 2026

◼ On the first day of the Republican convention in Dallas, President Donald Trump declared that he will issue a $5,000 government check to every American adult if the GOP wins control of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections. (He also, self-defeatingly and inaccurately, says he does not need Congress to send the checks.) The payments would supposedly be funded with revenue from the president’s tariffs. Yet tariff proceeds are now running negative as refunds exceed collections. Moreover, the nation is projected to run a $2 trillion deficit this year. Even if the government could afford to pay “dividends,” why would it do so only after the midterms? The best thing about these checks is that they will never go out.

◼ When George Washington learned that the U.S. Mint intended to add his face to America’s currency, he condemned the idea as unrepublican. In 1866, Congress formalized Washington’s instinct by passing a law that barred the “portrait or likeness” of any living figure from being featured on paper notes. Since then, this norm has held, with one narrow exception: commemorative coins. Citing language in the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, the Trump administration has issued a new $1 coin emblazoned with the president’s scowling face. While the coin is technically a collectible, the administration has been keen to insist that it “may be still used as legal tender.” The legality of this move is unclear, but so is whether anyone would have standing to sue. In any case, Trump has broken a valuable national custom. On its own, this infraction will not bring down the republic. But republicanism is a habit, and habits require constant reinforcement. Nobody asked Trump to violate this national custom. Nobody should thank him for it, either.

◼ “John Fetterman is a disgrace,” Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle, a Democrat, declared. “Our state deserves better than a lazy trust fund baby who is too lazy to do the job.” He was reacting to a report in the Wall Street Journal that revealed that Fetterman’s aides were frustrated by the senator’s irritation at having to perform the duties of his office and adhere to a recovery regimen following his stroke in 2022. Yet the left’s exasperation with Fetterman has become so mundane as to be easily dismissed. Fetterman’s steadfast refusal to draw a moral equivalence between Israel and its terrorist tormentors long ago estranged him from the progressive activist class. His occasional displays of heterodoxy, such as his support for a national data center build-out, have made him a pariah in conventional Democratic circles. But Fetterman doesn’t care. He made a surprise appearance by video at the GOP’s midterm convention to introduce his Republican counterpart in the Pennsylvania delegation, Dave McCormick. In August, a New York Times/Siena poll found that nearly half of Pennsylvanians viewed Fetterman favorably. In addition, pluralities said that his level of support for Trump and for Israel is “about right.” It seems like Fetterman is representing his constituents just fine. Maybe it’s the progressive left that is out of touch.

◼ The Child Care and Development Fund pays for childcare for low-income workers, typically single mothers. The Trump administration has proposed opening the program to married couples with one earner, the idea being that the government should not disfavor “stay at home” moms. Vice President JD Vance is reportedly driving this effort. The announcement set off a debate among conservatives in which both sides made some reasonable points coupled with invective about each other. To our mind, the decisive considerations tell against the proposal. It would extend to a new group of people very harsh disincentives to work (or to marry someone who works for too high a wage). And it is hard to see how the executive branch can legitimately rewrite the program on its own. But if we are talking about legislative action, as we should be, it would be better to fold the program into an expanded tax credit for children, which applies to nearly all parents and on balance encourages work and marriage. So long as we are suggesting unlikely outcomes, we may as well add that the conservatives on each side of this question should extend each other some charity.

◼ The Labor Department estimated that the U.S. economy gained 162,000 jobs in August, surpassing economists’ expectations. This strong employment report—at least relative to the lackluster growth of the past few years—increases the chances that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at its September meeting. If the labor market is humming along but inflation remains high, the Fed can more easily focus on restoring some semblance of price stability by tightening monetary policy. The president, however, sees it differently. In a post on Truth Social, he claimed that positive jobs data strengthened the case for the lower interest rates he continues to demand. On the contrary, the Fed should do its job and finally put inflation to bed.

Read A Broadside for the Nation.

◼ Coming soon to theaters: your tax dollars at work. Hollywood has struggled since the pandemic. Higher unionized labor costs and recurring worker strikes have pushed the production of movies abroad. The industry is seeking a generous federal tax credit of 20–30 percent to offset the costs of filming in America. Many states already offer their own filming tax credits, which fail to recoup lost revenue and merely reallocate economic activity from more competitive businesses. Unfortunately, several Republicans—including Trump—are endorsing a national version of this handout. Think of it as industrial policy for actors and stagehands. The windfall would effectively bail out Hollywood’s union-dominated labor market, allow it to avoid necessary reforms, and cost the government billions. Congress should leave this expensive gimmick on the cutting room floor.

◼ A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies suggests that the foreign-born population of the United States fell 2.9 million over the first 18 months of the Trump administration. It further estimates that the population of illegal immigrants has fallen 2.3 million—from 15.8 million to 13.5 million. If these numbers, extrapolated from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, withstand scrutiny, it would mean that America’s net migration numbers have gone negative for the first time since the 1930s. Trump, then, has followed through on his promise to control immigration after a period of lawlessness and chaos under Joe Biden. Moreover, these numbers make plain that immigration is not an uncontrollable feature of globalization that governments and peoples must accept.

◼ The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won a crucial state election in Saxony-Anhalt—the first victory by a far-right party in a German state since before World War II. AfD took 43.8 percent of the vote, just three seats short of a majority. While the result is not an augury of a future Fourth Reich, it illustrates that Germany is in a mess with no easy exit. Many AfD voters were animated by unhappiness with the economy and the sense of living in a “left behind” region. But it was AfD’s hard line on immigration—an issue that has defined the party since Angela Merkel flung open Germany’s doors to refugees and migrants in 2015—that swept it to victory. AfD came second in last year’s federal elections. Nationally, it now leads in the polls at 29 percent. The party is close to Russia and China, and many among its ranks are hostile to the United States. Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, should lay down strict conditions under which he would be prepared to work with AfD. This would hopefully encourage the party—or, failing that, some of its voters—to move closer to the mainstream. Ultimately, though, there is no substitute for Merz simply addressing the legitimate concerns of the voters behind the rise of AfD.

◼ Unlike many Argentines, their president, Javier Milei, is an admirer of Margaret Thatcher. But, like many Argentines, he believes that the Falkland Islands belong to Argentina. And like many of his predecessors, he believes that some Malvinas talk can be a useful distraction from problems closer to home. Milei’s economic shock therapy is the right treatment for Argentina, but the patient is going through a rough patch. The impressive fall in inflation during the first two years of his tenure has stalled. GDP growth is set to disappoint, and unemployment remains high. Some industries—primarily oil and gas and agriculture—are doing well, but others are struggling. Milei’s poll ratings are down. A presidential election is due next year. All this has led Milei to rattle his chainsaw. Argentine sanctions are being imposed on oil companies drilling in Falklands waters, but the British are largely unconcerned. They do, however, remember Trump’s comments that, should this dispute come to blows, the U.S. might stay out of it. Silence would have been the better course for Trump in this instance, but it is not something that comes easily to him.

◼ The twelve jurors in Lindsay Clancy’s trial for the first-degree murder of her three young children—allegations that Clancy’s defense counsel did not deny—could not come to a unanimous verdict. In an interview following the mistrial, three jurors recounted their frustration with a holdout during the deliberations. This person would not, they said, listen to their “expertise” on postpartum depression. The holdout “had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children,” one jilted juror complained. Good for him. Much of the commentary around this trial has focused on the need to deliver Clancy from her ordeal because of how women everywhere have been treated over the centuries. As though an act of charity in this case, irrespective of the circumstances, would pay some karmic due to past generations of oppressed women. We might call this notion—and the non-outcome of this trial—by many names, but we cannot call it justice.

◼ It has been a year since Charlie Kirk was murdered for the offense of showing up at a college campus to express his views. The assassination of the MAGA activist, podcaster, and organizer was a shocking crime that ripped a 31-year-old husband and father away from his wife and young children. It was also a heinous act of political violence. A fundamental premise of our republic is that citizens can have passionate but civil disagreements with one another, and then settle their differences by voting and engaging in other expressions of representative democracy. Kirk was an exemplar of this principle. An array of deranged conspiracy theories have emerged about Kirk’s murder, but the case is closed. The suspect, left-winger Tyler Robinson, despised Kirk and his views and left a trail of damning evidence. We hope that the trial will deliver justice and clear the public record. In the meantime, our thoughts are with Kirk’s widow, Erika, who has endured so much.

◼ A quarter century has passed since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the accompanying murder of the passengers and crew of four civilian airliners. For a moment, the nation was united in horror and filled with a terrible resolve. It is the most important measure of the success of our national response that we have suffered no mass-casualty terror attack on the scale of 9/11 since then, even as Islamist terror has persisted here and around the world. The 9/11 attacks were also a failure for their perpetrators. Rather than bring on a revolution that would restore the caliphate, wreck the West, and drive America apart from both Israel and Saudi Arabia, the architects of the attacks died miserable deaths, Israel is stronger and closer to the U.S.—and to many Arab nations—than ever, Iraq is now a democracy (however flawed), and the Islamist revolutionary state of Iran is in shambles. And yet, after vowing for years to never forget, too many in America and the West have forgotten. That is nowhere clearer than in New York, where the anniversary will be presided over by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a partisan of the West’s radical enemies.