‘By Himself?!’ Joe Scarborough Stunned by Trump’s Eye-Popping Share of America’s $40T Debt

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough pointed squarely at President Donald Trump’s massive share of the record-high U.S. national debt after the figure hit a colossal $40 trillion as he worked to contextualize a number he said made people’s “eyes glaze over.”

Treasury Department data revealed on Tuesday that U.S. national debt hit $40 trillion after accelerating sharply in recent years, doubling from $20 trillion in less than a decade, while higher interest rates and increased borrowing have driven up the cost of servicing it.

The surge has been fueled by a combination of an aging population and major tax cuts and spending packages passed by both parties, adding trillions in projected borrowing through measures including the president’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as well as Covid-19 relief packages enacted under both Trump and former President Joe Biden.

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, however, Scarborough zeroed in on Trump and his campaign-trail promises to pay down the national debt before adding bluntly: “He hasn’t done that.”

“U.S. national debt just surpassed $40 trillion for the first time ever,” the host warned. “That milestone was reached yesterday, only five months after it hit a record $39 trillion in debt in March. Our country is going to borrow more than $2 trillion this year just to pay for interest on the debt.”

He continued: “Donald Trump, who promised, while he’s sitting around there talking about construction projects, he promised he was going to pay off the debt, and yet he’s responsible for a massive portion of the national debt! Reuters reports that it rose 7 to $8 trillion during his first term, with more than half of it accumulating during the pandemic response over his last nine months in office. So far, the debt’s increased by $3.8 trillion, for a total of $11.6 trillion. Only six years in office.”

“So think about that. We’ve got a $40 trillion debt. He’s responsible for, in many accounts, for anywhere from 25% to 30% of America’s national debt,” he added.

Comparing Trump’s record to other presidents, Scarborough said that of “the 45 presidents that this country has had, 45, Donald Trump is responsible for almost a third of this country’s national debt – him, the one. The one!”

“It took us over 210 years for all of those presidents, from George Washington all the way through Bill Clinton, to together collectively pile on as much debt as Donald Trump has done by himself,” he exclaimed. “It’s incredible.”

Furthering attempting to contextualize the number, which he warned was so big it was hard to process, he said: “Think about it this way, if you made $1 million every day, $1 million every day to pay off the national debt, you would have to work for 109,000 years every day to pay off the national debt – yeah, 109,589 years. I tallied it up.”

“To put that in perspective, that’s 20 times longer than all of recorded history. So that’s how deep we are in debt,” he warned. “And we’re so deep in debt that Americans are now paying interest on the debt at a higher level this year than they are paying for America’s national defense.”

“That’s the first time that’s ever happened where your credit card debt from the federal government is actually higher than defense to protect our country,” he concluded.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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