President Donald Trump was pummeled over his recent proposal to send Americans $2,000 checks, with political commentators calling the idea an example of “gangster capitalism” masquerading as “generosity,” Salon reported Friday.

“Trump’s game show-style giveaways…are not policy responses,” said Henry Giroux, a social theorist, speaking with Salon.

“What masquerades as generosity is simply gangster capitalism transformed into the politics of disposability in its purest form: The state is hollowed out, social rights vanish and people are thrown back onto the market, grateful for whatever crumbs of short-term relief fall from above.”

Trump first raised the idea of giving Americans checks in early November, proposing a multibillion-dollar payout to end the government shutdown – triggered by disputes over health care policy – by letting people use the money to purchase their own coverage.

However, Trump’s proposal was immediately back peddled on by his own Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who told ABC News that the president’s proposal could actually be referring to the general cost savings that the Trump administration had delivered from its policies.

Nevertheless, Trump has since doubled-down on the idea, demanding that Congress rush $2,000 checks to Americans as recently as Tuesday. For Chuck Collins, author and senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., Trump’s plan was merely a tool to get himself out of a particularly difficult political bind.

“Facing mounting challenges and plummeting popularity, Trump is serving up distracting, alluring prizes and ‘tariff dividend checks’ in true carnival barker fashion,” Collins told Salon. “While the stock market booms for the wealthy, U.S. working families are still suffering from stagnant wages, layoffs, and rising costs for groceries, housing, health care and other basics.”

Trump has argued his proposal could act as an alternative to extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are poised to expire later this year and lead to an estimated 4 million Americans losing health insurance.