Question

Donald Trump owns 25% of our debt.

Answer 1

No Donald Trump does not own 25% of the U.S national debt. Under certain administrations like Trump's, the overall debt can increase, but simply not by one person, especially by 25%. Actually, the public holds about 80% of debt. This includes private investors, both foreign and domestic where they hold the most of the nation's debt at $24.4 trillion. The U.S federal reserve also holds a good chunk as well as intergovernmental holdings which fund Social Security, Medicare, etc.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/12/key-facts-about-the-us-national-debt/

the-federal-government-has-borrowed-trillions-but-who-owns-all-that-debt

Comments

This is a false claim, Donald Trump is not the owner of 25% of the national debt. The people in charge of most of our debt are actually private investors, who own approximately 66% of national debt (The Pew Research Center). Another source, Newsweek, 25% of national debt would have to be 8 trillion dollars and Trump was around 7 trillion at the time of his presidency. This further presents to us that this claim of 25% is false. This title is not exactly true and has been proven false by multiple claims, Trump ended his term with approximately $7.4 trillion in debt which is below 25%. This proves that the title/claim is false.


 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/12/key-facts-about-the-us-national-debt/

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-national-us-debt-1774764

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-national-debt-donald-trump-barack-obama-ee3e613646fe500edf803e57959c776e

Answer 2

The statement likely stems from a factual but often misleading claim. Nearly 25% of the U.S. national debt was incurred during Donald Trump's presidency. This means that about a quarter of the total historical debt was added between January 2017 and January 2021. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-debt-25-percent/?utm

It is also false to say that he "owns" the debt. The U.S. federal debt is owed by the government to various investors, individuals, institutions, and foreign governments, not "owned" by a president. This is also not the first time a president has accumulated that amount of debt. During Obama’s presidency, he added $9,320,427,506,299, or about 30% of the debt. This is not to say that one president is better than the other, but just to put into perspective that this has happened before.

Where is this debt coming from? CRFB analysis reveals that during Trump's term, $8.8 trillion of gross new borrowing was authorized through laws and actions. $443 billion was offset through deficit-reducing measures. Out of this, about $4.8 trillion excluded the COVID-related relief—meaning even without the pandemic, borrowing expanded significantly. https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt?utm

Also, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 significantly reduced federal revenue through lower tax rates. This contributed to deficits turning into a nearly $1 trillion shortfall by 2019 per https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/federal-debt-deficit-trump-harris-5a0d30d2?utm

To put it more simply: Trump does not "own" the debt, nor did he personally accumulate it. But during his term, 25% of the debt was added.

Answer 3

The claim that "Donald Trump owns 25% of our debt" is false. 

According to the constitution of the United States, and cited here on Congress.gov, "The constitution vests congress with the power of the purse, with provisions that refer to congressional authority to levy taxes, authorize issuances of debt, and make appropriations to fund the federal government."

Therefore, the congress and senate of the United States is responsible for any of the debt accrued in the country, and budgets often do not align perfectly with presidential terms. 

According to Newsweek, "Given the current debt is just over $31.4 trillion, Jolly's self-described "rough" 25 percent figure claimed by Jolly is imprecise based on Treasury data; it is actually 22.3 percent of the current total."

It is also important to note in the same article that COVID bipartisan relief measures accounted for a significant portion of that, and that other presidents before Donal Trump added "210 years, 5 trillion. 8 years under Bush, now 10t. 8 years under Obama, now 20t. 4 years under Trump, now 28t" according to Newsweek. Using their math, a fair claim also would be that President Barack Obama added 50% of the U.S. Debt during his presidency.

Answer 4

According to Pew research center, Trump does not own 25% of our debt. Their breakdown on who owns U.S debt has the top owners as foreign and international at 23.5% and 20.2% U.S government accounts. Many sources including the other two linked below confirm Trump was responsible for accumulating $7.8 trillion of the debt but that is just under 25% percent at the time the article was written, with no other sources confirming the 25%.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/12/key-facts-about-the-us-national-debt/

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20250205/117856/HHRG-119-GO00-20250205-SD008.pdf

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-debt-joe-biden-kevin-mccarthy-ceiling-1802049#:~:text=%22Under%20Trump%2C%20our%20national%20debt,would%20not%20come%20to%20pass.&text=Needs%20Context.,Hollen%20said%20he%20%22misspoke.%22

Answer 5

The claim that “Donald Trump owns 25% of our debt” is not true. He does not personally own any part of the U.S. national debt. What really happened is that while Trump was president, the government added a lot of new debt about 25% of what we owe now. But this debt belongs to the U.S. government, not to Trump. As https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-debt-25-percent/ explains, “Trump oversaw a $7.8 trillion increase in the national debt, which accounts for about 24.8% of the total U.S. debt.” https://www.factcheck.org/2023/02/factchecking-the-state-of-the-union-4/ also says, “the gross federal debt rose by $7.8 trillion under Trump.” This matters because saying one person “owns” the debt is misleading. The debt is mostly owed to people, banks, and other countries who lend money to the U.S. government, not to Donald Trump.

Answer 6

According to Pew research center, Trump does not own 25% of our debt. Their breakdown on who owns U.S debt has the top owners as foreign and international at 23.5% and 20.2% U.S government accounts. Many sources including the other two linked below confirm Trump as president was responsible for accumulating $7.8 trillion of the debt which is just under 25% (at the time the article was written), but that does not mean he owns it. 

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/12/key-facts-about-the-us-national-debt/

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20250205/117856/HHRG-119-GO00-20250205-SD008.pdf

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-debt-joe-biden-kevin-mccarthy-ceiling-1802049#:~:text=%22Under%20Trump%2C%20our%20national%20debt,would%20not%20come%20to%20pass.&text=Needs%20Context.,Hollen%20said%20he%20%22misspoke.%22

Answer 7

According to Pew research center, Trump does not own 25% of our debt. Their breakdown on who owns U.S debt has the top owners as foreign and international at 23.5% and 20.2% U.S government accounts. Many sources including the other two linked below confirm Trump as president was responsible for accumulating $7.8 trillion of the debt which is just under 25% (at the time the article was written), but that does not mean he owns it. 

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/12/key-facts-about-the-us-national-debt/

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20250205/117856/HHRG-119-GO00-20250205-SD008.pdf

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-debt-joe-biden-kevin-mccarthy-ceiling-1802049#:~:text=%22Under%20Trump%2C%20our%20national%20debt,would%20not%20come%20to%20pass.&text=Needs%20Context.,Hollen%20said%20he%20%22misspoke.%22

Answer 8

This claim is not quite true and is exaggerated quite a bit. Donald Trump does not own the debt, he just caused it. According to PolitiFact. "According to the Treasury Department, when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, the gross federal debt stood at $19.9 trillion. When Biden took office, it was $27.8 trillion. So, the $7.9 trillion added on Trump’s watch was about 25% the amount of today’s total debt." (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/jan/25/joe-biden/joe-biden-blames-donald-trump-for-one-quarter-of-t/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20debt%20has%20been,amount%20of%20today's%20total%20debt.) This quote above shows that the claim is true, Donald Trump did generate 25% more debt to the United States. However, this claim is a big shift of putting the blame onto Donald Trump entirely. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, not all the Blame can be put onto Trump. To be fair, he was president during the pandemic and "$3.6 trillion came from COVID relief laws and executive orders". (https://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-did-president-trump-add-debt) This quote shows that some of the debt he acquired for the country came from the harsh scenario which was the pandemic. Another way to show the exaggeration in this claim is to put into perspective. According to Investopedia, one of our best presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt, accumulated "$178,464,714,660.98" in debt during his presidency. This number is much bigger than Trump's amount and it shows that debt is just something that happens over time. Overall, this claim is quite exaggerated but it is not false. 

Answer 9

The claim is false, Donald Trump doesn't actually own 25% of our debt.  According to Pew Research Center, they claim that the ones who owns most of our debt are the private investors.  They say, "Investors own about two-thirds of the national debt, or $24.4 trillion as of March 2025, the latest figures available"(https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/12/key-facts-about-the-us-national-debt/).  Newsweek also states, "it is actually 22.3 percent of the current total" that he owns (https://www.newsweek.com/trump-national-us-debt-1774764). The article claims that Trump has a motive to take down the debt while he still has the power. Published by CRFB, they explain, Trump doesn't necessarily own the debt but he was the reason for the debt.  The source says that Trumps executive actions made a big impact, debt wise, on net (https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt?utm). 

Answer 10

George Conway published a screenshot from X by James Tate, on BlueSky, claiming that Trump owns 25% of our debt. Previous posts by this user include screenshots of studies from issues like the war in Gaza and reposting content "On Trump's civil fraud appeal." With an understanding of the type of content this user produces, we can infer that the vast majority of his content tends to have a strong left-wing bias.

Conway's claim that "Trump owns 25% of our debt" is false. According to the Pew Research Center, the U.S.'s debt is mainly accumulated by private and public investors as well as foreign holders. Additionally, one individual can't hold 25% of the U.S.'s debt, which would be $9.30 trillion; however, the US Budget Watch 2024, shows that Trump has approved the spending of 25% of the national debt. Therefore, while the claim's language is not correct, the idea is that Trump is responsible for approving 25 of our national debt is correct.

Answer 11

In an article by Pew Research Center, the CBO believes that the "megabill" will add $3.4 trillion into our deficit spending as a country. While this is a significant amount, it is nowhere close to 25% of our total national debt, as the person from Bluesky states. Some decisions made by Trump in his presidency have increased our debt in ways, but not that much.

Another claim made by the House Committee on the Budget explains that "premiums for ACA plans have risen significantly since the passage of the ACA, prior to President Trump even entering office". Basically, it is not his fault that getting affordable care is costing the country more overall money. This is one of many factors increasing our debt, but it is not his fault, and neither is 25 WHOLE percent of our nation's debt.

Finally, the country's debt grows and changes all the time, and according to BallotPedia, "the fluctuations cited by Trump are small in the context of total national debt". Numerous well-trusted sites have researched this claim, and they have all come to the conclusion that while Trump may be responsible for increasing the debt a little, he definitely does not "own" 25% of it.