Trump Accounts for Kids

NBC News Radio National Correspondent Rory O'Neill joins us to discuss accounts created for newborns under the Trump Administration. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Bred just said, Hey, SCHMIDI you should have waited
a little while before you had children. This is West
Michigan's Morning New You Stee, Kelly Read, Keita, Loren Smith.
Let's get to Rory on the NBC News Radio, a
national correspondent.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Good day to you, sir, Steve. Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I saw some of this press conference yesterday. I still
don't know quite how it works, because the guy from
Dell had a lot to say about giving money to
newborn's talk to us a little bit. Let's start there
about how it works. Right.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Part of the Big Beautiful Bill was the creation of
the Trump Account. For any baby born during Trump two
point zero from the January of this year through December
of twenty twenty eight, they qualify to set up an
account that will have one thousand dollars of seed money
for that newborn, and then they can tap into that

(00:44):
once they turn eighteen and use the money to pay
for college expenses or even a down payment on the house.
And the announcement yesterday was that Michael Dell, the computer guy,
and his wife are donating six and a half billion
dollars to juice up that funding so that any kid,
whether born in these four years or kids under ten
these days, they can qualify for at least two hundred

(01:06):
and fifty bucks. So the newborn's born during the Trump
two point zero years, they get one thousand dollars of
seed money. But these accounts can be opened by anybody
now and hopefully more of these contributions will come in,
even from your personal employer to help grow these accounts.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Wow, is this something? How do you even sign up
for this?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thought you'd asked that question. So you can't sign up yet,
but you can go to Trump Accounts dot gov. Make
sure that you do that dot gov Trump Accounts dot
gov and sign put your email in and you'll get updated.
But essentially the application process is going to start on
the fourth of July next year, America's two hundred and
fiftieth birthday. And yes, you can do it retroactive to
the baby being born last year.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
So, Roy, let me ask you, when you say seed money,
what does that mean as far as access to it rules?
I mean, is it sort of like we have like
in the state of Michigan, where you can, you know,
save money right and put it in for kids for
college later on. But there's obviously access.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Rules, right, think of it more as like being a bond,
a savings bond. Right, So, yeah, you can put this
thousand dollars. So the government will put in this thousand
dollars at least for now for a newborn, and that
money will then be managed so it can mature over time,
so it's available for graduate for college funds, or for
home purchases. There are a few other things that will

(02:24):
be available. But they're also opening it up so that
more charities can donate to it, or a philanthropists like
the Dells, or your employer. Let's say you had a
baby at work and your employer says, oh, I want
to help you with the child's future, so I'm going
to donate in their name and put money in this
account of theirs.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Has there been good reaction to this, because I'm thinking, like,
where does this money come from? When we talk about
some of those personal donors or your employer, has he
been having conversations and people are excited about giving to
these things.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, yeah, I think it's just sort of started because
the accounts haven't really rolled out yet. They haven't had
a lot of buzz that were just included in the
big Beautiful Bill, which of course, you know, it was
divisive and everyone chose sides as to whether or not
it was the greatest thing since sliced bread or the Armageddon.
So now that we're sort of learning some of the
details of this, I think we're going to see a
lot more attention focused on these kinds of accounts as

(03:14):
the application process gets underway again. The website Trump Accounts
dot gov just standing up now, taking email addresses and
answering a lot of the There's an FAQ on that
website that'll help explain a bit more detail.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Interesting news also about mass killings yesterday, a completely different subject,
but I guess good news.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, actually mass killings are down significantly. Now gosh, this
is a bit of a turn on topics, but yeah,
now they define them as being horrible incidence where four
or more people are murdered in rather not including the gunman.
So when you use those terms, what we're seeing is
seventeen of those mass killings so far in twenty twenty five.

(03:57):
That's way down from the peak in twenty nineteen, when
there were forty six of those kinds of killings, essentially
one a week that year.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
That is Rory O'Neil Nbceniors Radio National correspondent. Thanks for
your time today.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Thanks give