COLUMBUS, Ohio — U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno said Wednesday that he is drafting legislation to pay every adult U.S. citizen $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the November midterm elections. The proposed payments would cost more than $1 trillion, based on the roughly 270 million adults Moreno said would qualify. Neither President Donald Trump nor Moreno has provided a detailed legislative plan or established funding source for the proposal. Moreno said the money could come from a “market access fee” and fees connected to a proposed Trump initiative that would allow wealthy foreign nationals to pay for permanent U.S. immigration status. He described the payment plan as certain, despite the lack of a finalized bill or public funding framework. Trump previously promoted a $5,000 “DOGE dividend” and additional payments from tariff revenue. Those payments have not been issued. Democrats have criticized the latest pledge as an empty promise and questioned whether using a benefit to influence voters could violate election law. Moreno defended the proposal by pointing to Democratic promises on health care and making a series of unsubstantiated claims about federal spending during President Joe Biden’s administration. He said the payment would be targeted toward people who need financial relief, although the proposal described in the interview would apply broadly to adult citizens. The senator also addressed growing concerns about artificial intelligence and the rapid expansion of data centers. Researchers at Anthropic warned that AI could pose an existential threat to humanity by 2030, according to the discussion. Executives and leaders associated with OpenAI, Google DeepMind and xAI have also called for stronger safeguards or a slower pace of development. Moreno questioned Anthropic’s motives, suggesting the company may be seeking to limit competition. He said that if the company believes its technology could harm humanity, it should stop producing it. His policy focus, he said, is on preventing data centers from receiving taxpayer subsidies, requiring them to generate or pay for their own electricity and protecting communities from higher utility bills. He also said companies should respect local decisions about whether data centers are welcome. Data centers require large amounts of electricity, and their growth has raised concerns about grid capacity, infrastructure costs and who ultimately pays for new generation and transmission. Moreno’s comments place those costs at the center of his approach, rather than endorsing a broad federal pause on AI development. Moreno won his Senate seat in 2024 and is not up for reelection this year. His next scheduled Senate election is in 2030.