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Nov. 9, 2025, 2:27 PM ESTBy Alexandra MarquezPresident Donald Trump this weekend floated directly paying Americans for their health care costs and giving out $2,000 dividends from tariff revenue, ideas that administration officials later said were not formal proposals being sent to the Senate.In one Truth Social post on Saturday, the president wrote, “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE.”The following day, he again posted that Republicans should give money directly to people’s health savings accounts, which allow people to save pretax money that can be used for certain medical expenses.Referring to his tariff agenda, Trump wrote, “We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion. Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the president’s recommendation to Senate Republicans on health care was not yet fully worked out.“We don’t have a formal proposal,” Bessent told ABC’s “This Week,” adding, “We’re not proposing it to the Senate right now, no.”Bessent said any such proposal was contingent on ending the government shutdown, which on Monday will stretch into its 40th day.“The president is posting about it, but again, we have got to get the government reopened before we do this. We are not going to negotiate with the Democrats until they reopen the government. It’s very simple,” he said.Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, similarly downplayed the idea on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday morning.“He’s brainstorming and trying to help the Senate come up with a deal that can get the government open,” Hassett said.“Everybody believes that people should have health care, and so why not take the people who have higher health care premiums and just mail them a check and let them decide,” he added.Hassett said the idea hasn’t been widely discussed within the Senate or the Trump administration.“The president started this idea yesterday. I don’t think that it’s been discussed widely in the Senate yet. It’s the weekend,” Hassett added. The Senate remained in Washington over the weekend, gaveling into rare Saturday and Sunday sessions to continue discussions about how to end the shutdown.Bessent was also asked on ABC about Trump’s proposal to give people a $2,000 tariff “dividend.” He said he hadn’t yet spoken to the president about it, but that it “could come in lots of forms.”“It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans,” he said. “So those are substantial deductions that are being financed in the tax bill.”The idea of sending tariff rebate checks came up earlier this year as well.After Trump in July said he would favor sending tariff rebate checks to Americans, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced a bill that would provide $600 checks to American adults and children using tariff revenue. The Senate has not yet taken up that bill for a vote.Trump’s posts came as Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill remained in a stalemate over the ongoing government shutdown, with no clear path to a deal.An NBC News poll released earlier this month found that Americans blame Republicans more for the shutdown than they do Democrats.Democrats swept Tuesday’s elections, winning by larger-than-expected margins in key races in New Jersey and Virginia. Exit polls found that voters in those states generally disapproved of Trump’s job in office so far and were sour on the state of the U.S. economy.Since then, Trump has doubled down on his insistence that the economy is strong. In one of the Truth Social posts on Sunday, the president wrote, “People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k’s are Highest EVER.”Still, the posts this weekend seemed to be an acknowledgment that Republicans may need to do more.In a memo Friday, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin called Tuesday’s elections “an unequivocal Blue Sweep” brought about because “Donald Trump and the Republicans are screwing Americans, while Democrats are fighting for them.”Alexandra MarquezAlexandra Marquez is a politics reporter for NBC News.

- Latest News - November 9, 2025

Trump floated directly paying Americans for their health care costs and giving out $2,000 dividends from tariff revenue, ideas that admin officials later said were not formal proposals.

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Nov. 9, 2025, 2:55 PM ESTBy Alexandra MarquezThe U.S. Department of Agriculture said that states that issued full November SNAP benefits to recipients after a lower court decision allowed them to should “immediately undo” the distributions and that failure to comply could result in cancellation of future disbursement of federal funds. “To the extent States sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized. Accordingly, States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025,” Patrick A. Penn, the Deputy Under Secretary Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, wrote on Saturday regarding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.“Failure to comply with this memorandum may result in USDA taking various actions, including cancellation of the Federal share of State administrative costs and holding States liable for any overissuances that result from the noncompliance,” he wrote.The latest memo was a reversal of earlier guidance the USDA had issued before the Supreme Court again paused the distribution of full SNAP benefits on Friday, sending the case back to the appeals court.The Friday memo said that the relevant agencies in the Trump administration would “complete the processes necessary to make funds available to support your subsequent transmittal of full issuance files to your EBT processor.”Saturday’s memo comes amid a fast-moving legal battle over whether the federal government should continue to disburse SNAP benefits — also known as food stamps — to over 40 million Americans who usually receive them during the ongoing federal government shutdown.SNAP benefits were funded for October, the first month of the shutdown, but at the end of the month, the USDA posted a message on its website informing Americans that SNAP benefits wouldn’t be dispersed in November, telling them that “the well has run dry” and blaming Democrats for the lapse.Two separate lawsuits were filed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts ahead of Nov. 1 seeking to force the federal government to release the funds.In response to one of the lawsuits, the USDA allowed SNAP benefits to be partially released. Then, last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to pay SNAP benefits in full for November. States began to disburse the funds as quickly as possible last week. But on Friday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to temporarily halt SNAP payments for November.The USDA guidance on Saturday did not explain to states how they should claw back funding that may have already gone out to SNAP recipients.On Sunday, Gov. Maura Healey, D-Mass., said that SNAP recipients in her state should continue to spend their funds and threatened to sue the Trump administration.”If President Trump wants to penalize states for preventing Americans from going hungry, we will see him in court. Massachusetts residents with funds on their cards should continue to spend it on food. These funds were processed in accordance with guidance we received from the Trump Administration and a lower court order, and they were processed before the Supreme Court order on Friday night,” Healey said in a statement.Gov. Tony Evers, D-Wis., in response to the USDA’s request to undo SNAP disbursements, simply said in a statement, “No.”“Our administration is actively in court fighting against the Trump Administration’s efforts to yank food assistance away from Wisconsin’s kids, families, and seniors, and we are eager for the court to resolve this issue,” he added.Alexandra MarquezAlexandra Marquez is a politics reporter for NBC News.Gary Grumbach contributed.

- Latest News - November 9, 2025

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that states that issued full November SNAP benefits to recipients after a lower court decision allowed them to should “immediately undo” the distributions and.

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