“"Every service member recently received a Warrior Dividend of $1,776 ... We got the money from tariffs and other things."”

The Pentagon itself says the money did not come from tariffs. The Defense Department announced in December 2025 that the $1,776 payments to 1.28 million active-duty service members and 174,000 reservists came from a supplemental housing fund that Congress appropriated in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act: money the troops were already set to receive.

The payments were delivered as a nontaxable supplement to service members' regular monthly housing allowance, per the Pentagon's own news service. NBC News rated the tariff claim flatly false in its fact-check of the February 24, 2026 State of the Union. Tariff revenue cannot legally be redirected into a 'dividend' for troops without explicit congressional authorization, which Congress has never granted. Tariff receipts flow into the general fund of the U.S. Treasury, and economists note they are largely paid by American importers and consumers, not foreign governments.

Pentagon News, December 18, 2025: "Money to pay for the Warrior Dividend came earlier this year as part of the president's One Big Beautiful Bill."