Ledger · 2024 campaign · № 205
Pay down and eliminate the national debt
Broken“[paraphrase] We're going to pay off the national debt — and we'll do it fairly quickly.”
- Promised
- , Campaign interviews and rallies (a pledge he first made in 2016 and revived in 2024)
- Re-promised
- 8 times with a fresh deadline
- Topic
- Economy & prices
- Era
- 2024 campaign
What happened
The debt rose about $2.25 trillion in Trump's first year back in office ($2.29 trillion over calendar 2025) and is now approaching $50 trillion. Steve Rattner's July 2026 analysis found the deficit up from $1.8 trillion at inauguration to $1.9 trillion, above 6% of GDP versus 3.4% in 2017, with debt over 100% of GDP and on track to pass the 1946 record of 106% around 2030. Investor Jason Calacanis called Trump the 'worst-spending president in history.'
Sources
- Trump broke his promise to lower the debt. A top investor calls him history's worst spender
- Trump added $2.25 trillion to the national debt in his first year back in charge, watchdog says
- Trump's Broken Promises on Debt and Manufacturing
- Donald Trump Once Said He Would Eliminate America's $19 Trillion in Debt. The Total Is Now Approaching $50 Trillion.