The promise of a debt limit compromise between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could bring an end to weeks of negotiations and threats of U.S. economic catastrophe.
News broke on Saturday that the two men had agreed in principle to a deal that would raise the country's debt limit for two years and curb federal spending. McCarthy, backed by a GOP majority in the House of Representatives, had previously refused to agree to a debt ceiling raise without significant spending cuts.
Amid the break in the deadlock, one Democratic state legislator took to Twitter claiming that the president's predecessor had helped lead the country to its current debt crisis, alleging that Donald Trump had promised and failed to eliminate national debt.
The Claim
A tweet by Steven Woodrow, a Democratic member of the Colorado House of Representatives, posted on May 28, 2023 and viewed 319,700 times, claimed that Trump promised to eliminate national debt entirely.
The tweet stated: "Trump: added $7.8 trillion in 4 years after promising to eliminate the debt entirely.
"They're only "fiscal conservatives" when a Dem is in the White House. Otherwise they're just full of s***."
The Facts
Newsweek recently investigated another claim about Trump's contribution to the national debt, alleging the former president "accumulated" 40 percent of it during his term in office.
Although Trump oversaw a 40 percent increase from the figure at the start of his term, around half of this was realized during the last 10 months of his presidency as the U.S. responded to the COVID pandemic.
Spending on the United States' COVID response received bipartisan support.
Again, the claim about Trump here is not strictly untrue but omits details that contextualize the claim.
As reported by The Washington Post, Trump said in 2016 that he would be able to get rid of the debt (more than $19 trillion at the time) "over a period of eight years."
This, of course, assumed that Trump would stay in the White House for more than one term, an ambition that didn't materialize.
During his term, Trump instead added $7.8 trillion to the national debt, far from the elimination he had hoped for.
However, as explained in Newsweek's previous fact check, half of that debt developed during his last 10 months in office as the U.S. responded to COVID.
Woodrow's tweet doesn't mention the unexpected and unprecedented COVID spending, which received bipartisan support at the time, nor that Trump's plan was to eliminate the debt over eight years.
Already a mammoth task when he took the presidency in 2016, it's not clear how Trump would have managed to eliminate the debt having added nearly $8 trillion to it during his first term alone.
However, Woodrow's tweet doesn't explain the details of Trump's plans, nor does it address the extraordinary amount of spending that was supported by Democrats to tackle the public health and economic emergency posed by COVID.
Therefore, although it's not unfair to say that Trump did plan to eliminate the debt and failed to do so, the terms of the former president's claim are not explained here.
Newsweek left a voice message with Woodrow's office asking for comment.
The Ruling
Needs Context.
Although Trump did say that he planned to eliminate the debt entirely, the tweet omits that the plan was made at the start of his presidency to happen over two terms, in the confidence that he would earn a second term.
It's worth noting too that while Trump oversaw a 40 percent national debt increase, half of that increase was in the last 10 months of his presidency as the country responded to the COVID pandemic. Spending during this period received bipartisan support.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
