What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to salvage his approval ratings and his tariffs with a bribe.

To judge from his posts to his private microblogging website, Trump realized this morning just how badly last Wednesdays' Supreme Court hearing on the legality of his trade war went for him.

In short, Trump's authority to impose taxes on the goods American consumers buy is delegated from Congress, and it requires that there be a national emergency. Trump has repeatedly declared that he is imposing these taxes to punish political enemies, or because he got upset, or for no reason other than that he can—and the Court appears likely to find that no such "emergency" exists for exactly that reason.

That may be why Trump, who has repeatedly said he expects the three justices he appointed to vote as he wants them to, is offering a second cash bribe to Americans in as many days. This time, he floated a $2,000 "dividend" from the tariffs to be "paid to everyone." (Trump likes the idea of his name appearing on payouts to Americans so much that when the COVID crisis made stimulus checks a necessity, his team moved heaven and earth to make sure "PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP" appeared prominently on them, as though it were a gift from him personally.)

Of course, Trump has already earmarked the revenue from tariffs—a tiny fraction of the United States' overall revenue—for other things, like bailing out the farmers devastated by international retaliation to those same tariffs. And because tariffs are paid by the end consumer in the form of higher prices, Trump would at best be giving a fraction of the extra money he's cost taxpayers back to them, months or years later.

But given that even his own Treasury secretary immediately started walking back any possibility of checks being cut, that seems unlikely.

Why does this matter?

• Americans need their government to govern, not offer bribes to ignore it when it fails.