A Democratic lawmaker has questioned what a $5,000 check “will do for” Americans if President Donald Trump goes through with a proposal to pay dividends from savings found by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

According to Forbes, Trump has been considering the idea of direct payments to Americans that was floated by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

On Wednesday at a conference in Miami, Trump said 20% of DOGE savings could go directly to Americans, that would amount to around $5,000.

However, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said during an interview that she believes Trump is “just telling a lie” and noted there is no money for refunds.

“Listen, he is just telling a lie. He’s not the one who had anything to do with the $1,200 refunds that people had during the midst of covid, that was done by a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate. Right now, they’re going to say ‘hey we want to give you a refund, but Congress won’t let us’ because they already know that there’s just no money for that,” she said.

Crockett than went on to say that the COVID-19 pandemic was the only reason why there were checks handed out previously.

“The only reason that those refunds came before, was because we were living in different times,” Crockett said. “This was a time in which hopefully we won’t ever go through again. we had a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. the bad part on that is I don’t know if this was once-in-a-lifetime, because Ebola was unfortunately detected right here in New York, here recently.”

Crockett further stated that a pandemic could eventuate again because of Trump’s policies:

“If we continue down this road of getting rid of scientists or deciding we don’t want to rely on experts as relates to what they’re telling us to do, or we don’t want to deal with vaccines and medicine in this country, then we might be facing not only our next pandemic, but our next two, three, or four pandemics because of their incompetence. So no, we are not in the business of giving out money, and honestly, I don’t know what $5,000 will do for you.”

Watch the video below:

According to Fox News, Crockett had previously proposed that Black people shouldn’t pay income tax as a form of repatriations.