‘So Now We’re Just Bribing People’: Pro-MAGA Adam Carolla Swipes at Trump’s $5,000 Proposed Handout

Adam Carolla cut right to the chase when he offered his take on President Donald Trump’s plan to give out $5,000 to every American adult, as long as Republicans win the 2026 midterms.

“So now we’re just bribing people,” Carolla said on the Sunday episode of his podcast.

He said again it sounded like Trump was “bribin’ ’em” to get votes — but Carolla didn’t seem too upset about it.

The veteran comic and podcaster argued the Democratic Party has been doing its own version of freebie payments for decades, thanks to government programs like food stamps and states paying for the healthcare of low-income residents. Carolla said it “evidently works,” so Republicans should give it a shot.

“It definitely works on all the poor people,” Carolla continued. “We’ll just get you free cheese, and free school, and free Medicare, and we’ll get you free sh*t. Why don’t rich people start bribing people? Why not?”

His co-host Rudy Pavich told Carolla he has seen firsthand how it can entice voters, since he had fond memories of receiving sales tax rebate checks when he lived in Minnesota in the early 2000s. The checks were dubbed “Jesse Checks” by locals, in reference to then-Gov. Jesse “The Body” Ventura.

“I got that first Jesse Check when I was 18, it was like $900,” Pavich said.” And as an 18-year-old kid who’s never had more than $7 in his pocket, [when] $900 that just magically shows up in your bank account, you are a rich man!”

Carolla seemed to get a kick out of it.

His reaction comes after Trump declared at the GOP midterm convention he would issue a “dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000”; Trump said the catch is Republicans have to retain control of both the House and the Senate in November.

And despite some skepticism from pundits and lawmakers on both the left and the right, Trump doubled down on his plan over the weekend, saying it was “100%” going to happen.

“That’s going forward. The $5,000 checks are going forward,” Trump told reporters in Ireland. “And that’s because we’re taking in so much money in so different ways, including the tariffs.”

Watch above.

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