President Donald Trump is already facing backlash over the so-called “warrior dividend” he announced in an address to the nation Wednesday night.
Trump announced that 1.45 million service members will receive a $1,776 check before Christmas thanks to tariff revenue and the “big beautiful bill” he signed earlier this year. But skeptics immediately questioned how Trump could authorize personal checks to service members without congressional approval.
“Before Christmas, 1,450,000 service members will receive a special, what we call the Warrior Dividend. To commemorate our nation’s founding in 1776, we will pay every soldier $1,776. Think about it. The check is on the way,” Trump said in his speech.
“We make more money than anyone thought possible because of the tariffs, and this bill helps us move forward. No one deserves it more than our military. I congratulate everyone. By the way, we have record numbers of enlistments right now, and last year we had the worst enlistment numbers in the history of our military. What a difference one year makes,” he added.
However, online publication Defense One first reported that the checks were actually funded from a settlement fund approved by Congress to subsidize military housing subsidies.
A senior administration official told Defense One that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the Pentagon to “pay $2.6 billion as a one-time base allowance for housing subsidies” to all eligible service members.
“Congress appropriated $2.9 billion to the War Department to supplement the Housing Entitlement Basic Grant in the ‘Big Beautiful Act,'” the senior official told Defense One in a statement. “Approximately 1.28 million active duty military members and 174,000 reservists will receive this grant.”
The report immediately sparked criticism from social media platform X.
“I wonder how Trump finds his troop pay without congressional authorization/appropriation. He does it by taking the money from troop housing funds. He’s always been a liar,” The Atlantic’s David Frum wrote on X .
Former Rep. Joe Walsh wrote: “Typical Trump. Everything he does is a lie, everything he does is bullshit repackaged.”
Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch, posted: “Trump is taking money from Congress-approved housing subsidies and giving it to them in the form of ‘bonuses’ so it looks like it comes from him. This is just a scam, used by the ultimate conman to con people out of their military pay.”
New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D) said the Warrior Dividend is “nothing more than rebranded military housing subsidies.”
“Trump is not giving bonuses to our brave service members, he is just spending money so he can claim he is. The level of disrespect for the intelligence of our military is astounding,” she wrote on X.
U.S. veteran Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) also slammed Trump’s statement.
“Gee, thanks, Donald. Your $1,776 ‘warrior check’ was not a Christmas bonus – you were just stealing money from a fund designed to help our troops find affordable housing. Once a liar, always a liar,” Duckworth wrote.
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