U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a Congressional Space Medal of Honor presentation to the Artemis II crew at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, U.S., August 28, 2026.
An MS NOW economist could not let a discussion about the national debt slip past without properly tagging the president responsible for the brunt of it with a parting snap on Tuesday.
Henrietta Treyz, director of economic policy at Veda partners, reminded MS NOW anchor Katy Tur that President Donald Trump had a huge hand in putting the nation on the cusp of financial failure due to the nation’s exploding debt.
“It's hard to wrap your head around because it doesn't really make sense. And I'd also note that President Trump is personally responsible for $12 billion — excuse me, $12 trillion — worth of the deficit that has been incurred throughout American history just in the last six years,” barked Treyz, speaking of an IRS audit revealing a 35 percent drop in revenue in just one year after Trump and DOGE wiped out agency jobs.
“So that's 30 percent of all of it. That is because they've passed tax cuts and the tax cuts are inordinately expensive,” continued Trez. “And that is kind of the rub here. The President, the Republican Party, they aren’t cutting your taxes. These are taxes that you owe. So from the IRS, they're not finding new ways to tax you. They're just collecting what they've already agreed upon. So, if you're looking for fraud, waste and abuse to cut, this is literally it. And they have created it.”
A host of self-inflicted economic wounds have, among other things, led to the national debt surpassing $40 trillion. In fact, according to a recent report, the debt has ballooned so badly that even economists who previously didn’t focus on deficit issues are increasingly alarmed.
“One camp of economists has been warning about the perils of high debt for years: Budget hawks predicted that if the country kept spending and didn’t raise taxes enough to keep pace, the resulting fiscal crisis could be devastating,” wrote The Atlantic's Will Gottsegen recently. “But others — the doves — have brushed it off. Their perspective was that as long as the U.S. GDP was growing faster than the interest rate it was paying on its debt, the Treasury would be able to keep rolling over its bonds without too much of a problem. For much of the 2010s, this was essentially the status quo, and debt panic was muted.”
But national borrowing rates are rising because of deficit panic, Gottsegen added. There is now concern about the expansion of the national debt and the government’s ability to sustain it.
“Investors are starting to think of long-term Treasurys as riskier than they once did, and they’re demanding more money in exchange for taking on America’s debt. At the same time, the federal government has shown no real appetite to pull its two main levers for reducing the debt: cutting spending and raising taxes,” Gottsegen said.
Meanwhile, Trump has exhibited little knack for money by declaring bankruptcy on multiple business ventures, including multiple Atlantic City casinos, as well as Trump Airline, Trump Steaks, and Trump Magazine, as well as “Trump University” —a fraud scheme that ended in a $25 million settlement to reimburse defrauded students.
“He stiffed contractors, defaulted on debts, and used the legal system as a weapon against people who were owed money,” the Alternet reported. “And when his own businesses collapsed, daddy's money was there to catch him. Most people, if they had that track record, would be in prison or working as a car salesman somewhere. But Trump had inherited enough wealth that he could never actually fail.”
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