Karine Jean-Pierre Asked Point Blank About Debt Passing $35 Trillion

2 months ago

At a White House press briefing on Tuesday, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the debt in the United States.

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Transcript

00:00Go ahead.

00:01Thanks.

00:02Thanks, Creed.

00:03So the national debt crossed $35 trillion for the first time ever.

00:06The amount being added to the debt seems to be increasing at a growing rate.

00:10Today we talked with Fitch and they told us, the credit rating agency, and they told us

00:14that large fiscal deficits and increasing debt burden were key factors to the downgrade

00:19that the U.S. had last year.

00:21Is the President worried about another downgrade because our spending is more than the money

00:25we're taking in?

00:26Let me just tick off a couple of things, if I may, and want to be super clear about

00:31this.

00:32The President signed a $1 trillion of deficit reduction into law and his budget would lower

00:39the deficit by another $3 trillion by making billionaires and biggest corporations pay

00:44their fair share and cutting spending on special interests.

00:46That was an action that the President did.

00:48The prior administration increased the debt.

00:51Let's not forget what the prior administration did by a record $8 trillion and didn't sign

00:55a single law to reduce the deficit.

00:58And that's what we're dealing with right now.

01:01And on top of that, you have congressional Republicans that continue to want to blow

01:05up the debt, again, with $5 trillion more in Trump tax cuts while making hardworking

01:12families pay the price by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Affordable Care Act.

01:21And we want to do the opposite, right?

01:22The President's economic agenda, we want to make sure that we put middle-class families

01:26first, hardworking families first, and congressional Americans want to give more tax cut to the

01:32rich, to the billionaires, to the corporations.

01:35So the President has taken action to try and lower the deficit and Republicans want to

01:40balloon that.

01:41And $8 trillion, $8 trillion from the last administration, and they did nothing, nothing

01:47to try to make sure that we lower the deficit.

01:49But, so you're saying that we crossed $35 trillion because former President Trump's

01:53administration, I mean, that was four years ago.

01:56You know, the debt keeps increasing.

01:57Yeah.

01:58You know, at what point?

01:59The fact is, the fact is $8 trillion was what the increase in debt, was what the last administration

02:07did, the Trump administration, they didn't put forth, they didn't put forth any type

02:11of legislation to counter that.

02:13They didn't.

02:14They just let the debt balloon by $8 trillion.

02:17That's what they-

02:18That's what they did.

02:19The President, but what I-

02:20In the last three years.

02:21And what I'm saying to you is like, we can't, we can't discount what happened in the last

02:25administration and we can't discount what this President is trying to do to make sure

02:31that we address this.

02:32$1 trillion in deficit reduction into law, that's what the President signed.

02:38And that would lower the deficit by three, another $3 trillion by making billionaires

02:43and the biggest, the biggest corporations pay their fair share.

02:47Republicans are offering the opposite of that.

02:50So I think policy matters.

02:52What we've been able to get done matters.

02:55I'm not discounting what you're saying.

02:57I'm just saying the President is actually working to make, to lower the deficit and

03:02Republicans want to do the opposite.

03:03That is where we are when we think about the policy.

03:06That is where we are.

03:08And I think that matters as well.

03:09I know I have to get going.

03:11Good, sir.

Karine Jean-Pierre Asked Point Blank About Debt Passing $35 Trillion

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