GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday that Republicans share in the blame for the country's massive $32.9 trillion debt, including former President Donald Trump.
The Republican presidential hopeful made the comments in a speech at the Concerned Women for America Summit in Washington, D.C.
The national debt rose by $7.4 trillion in Trump's first administration, from $19.5 trillion to $26.9 trillion.
"And let's just be clear — we didn't get $32 trillion in debt just because of one party. It's been Republicans and Democrats in D.C. who have bankrupted this country," DeSantis told the gathering.
"Donald Trump added almost $8 trillion to the debt in four years. He ran saying he was going to eliminate the national debt," DeSantis told CBS News in an interview earlier this week. "He did make that promise, and they did the opposite."
DeSantis said the country is "careening toward bankruptcy," pointing to the bipartisan debt ceiling deal signed into law by President Joe Biden in June.
"I'm not going to let the Congress spend this country into oblivion any longer," he said Friday.
GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has also beat the drum on spreading blame to Republicans — including DeSantis.
"The truth is that Biden didn't do this to us," Haley said last month at the first GOP debate. "You have Ron DeSantis, you've got Tim Scott, you've got Mike Pence — they all voted to raise the debt. And Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt. Our kids are never going to forgive us for this."
The debt sits at nearly $33 trillion, having increased by more than 89% since the beginning of the pandemic, according to CNBC.
"When they passed that $2.2 trillion COVID stimulus bill, they left us with 90 million people on Medicaid, 42 million people on food stamps. No one has told you how to fix it," Haley said at the debate.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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