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Want to talk about consistency?
“We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt,” he said, referring to the gross federal debt (which actually was $18.1 trillion at the end of 2015). “How long would that take?” the interviewers asked. “I would say over a period of eight years,” he responded.
Over the first three years of his administration, Trump went in the opposite direction, increasing the annual budget deficit from $585 billion (in Obama’s last year) to $984 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2019.
This increase was due mainly to higher government spending. By December 31, 2019, the gross federal debt had increased 14 percent since 2016 and reached $22.7 trillion—and all of that before COVID-19 hit.
President Trump’s attitude on debt and deficit seems to have changed somewhat since his interview with Woodward and Costa. At a January 17, 2020 Republican fundraiser, Trump declared “Who the hell cares about the budget? We’re going to have a country.”
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