Donald Trump has announced a huge cash bonus for more than a million Americans as part of his televised address on Wednesday evening (December 17).
During the speech, which was aired live from the White House, the president looked back at his 11 months in office and wasted no time in singing his own praises as he reeled off his list of accomplishments and crucially what it meant for Americans going forward.
In the speech, Trump revealed he would be giving a $1,776 ‘warrior dividend’ to serving military personnel this holiday season, with the checks ‘already on the way’ to arrive in a matter of days.
“Military service members will receive a special — we call Warrior Dividend — before Christmas, in honor of our nation’s founding in 1776,” he said.
The planned payments are just one of several financial rewards targeted at specific groups of voters, seemingly with the hope of turning the tide in the president’s recent decline in polling numbers.
Any added cash boost will no doubt be welcomed by many families, as much of the country continues to struggle amid the cost of inflation – something Trump argued was entirely his predecessor Joe Biden’s fault.
According to Trump, Biden was responsible for just about everything currently wrong with America, as he reeled off claims about rising immigration, wage stagnation, pharmaceutical costs skyrocketing and a crumbling economy.
“11 months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it,” Trump said. “When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans.”
While pointing the finger of blame squarely at the Democrats, Trump did however offer a sliver of insight into how he intended to solve the problem as he boasted about everything the country had achieved under his leadership so far.
One of his proposed solutions to help the American people is to lower the cost of prescription drugs by as much as ‘600 percent’, something he claimed is only possible due to the success of his tariffs.
“I’m doing what no politician of either party has ever done, standing up to the special interests of dramatically reducing the price of prescription drugs,” Trump told Americans.
“I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations who were taking advantage of our country for many decades to slash prices on drugs by as much as 400, 500, or 600 percent.
“In other words, your drug costs will be plummeting downwards. I used the threat of foreign tariffs on countries who would never have done it, to pay the cost of this giant dollar reduction. They stopped ripping us off and it began as of four days ago.”
With the average American said to be spending $1,200 to $1,400 per person a year on medication, the reduction could save a huge chunk of money should it be successfully implemented.
