Trump says US may have less debt than thought because of fraud
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump on Sunday said his administration was examining US Treasury debt payments for possible fraud and suggested that the country鈥檚 $36-trillion debt load might not be that high.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Mr. Trump said administration officials who have been combing through payment records in an effort to identify wasteful spending have turned their attention to the debt payments that play a central role in the global financial system.
鈥淲e鈥檙e even looking at Treasuries,鈥 Mr. Trump said. 鈥淭here could be a problem 鈥 you鈥檝e been reading about that, with Treasuries and that could be an interesting problem.鈥
He added: 鈥淚t could be that a lot of those things don鈥檛 count. In other words, that some of that stuff that we鈥檙e finding is very fraudulent, therefore maybe we have less debt than we thought.鈥
It was not clear whether Mr. Trump was referring to debt service or other government payments made by the Treasury Department.
The United States currently has $36.2-trillion public debt outstanding, according to the US Treasury, equal to more than 120% of Gross Domestic Product. Because the US government spends more money than it collects, Mr. Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress will have to authorize more borrowing sometime this year to avert a debt default that could have catastrophic consequences.
Mr. Trump鈥檚 proposed tax cuts would add trillions of dollars more in debt, independent budget watchdogs say.
Mr. Trump has tasked Elon Musk with an ambitious overhaul of the federal government, sparking street protests in Washington and accusations that the Trump administration is breaking the law.
Mr. Musk鈥檚 鈥淒epartment of Government Efficiency鈥 has disrupted operations at several federal agencies and has raised privacy and security concerns while accessing sensitive payroll and spending records.
A federal judge temporarily blocked Mr. Musk鈥檚 team on Saturday from accessing government systems used to process trillions of dollars in payments, citing a risk that sensitive information could be improperly disclosed.
After the ruling, Mr. Musk said a do-not-pay list of entities that should not receive government payments should be updated at least weekly, if not daily.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a Trump appointee, said last week that Mr. Musk鈥檚 team had 鈥渞ead only鈥 access to the payment system, which would not give them power to make changes.
Mr. Trump鈥檚 attempt to freeze wide swaths of domestic aid has been blocked in court, but project managers across the country say billions of dollars nevertheless have been withheld for clean energy and transportation projects.
Some health clinics say they have been forced to lay off staff and shutter facilities because they have not been able to access federal funding. 鈥 Reuters
