Politifact decided to fact-check one of President Donald Trump’s tweets Sunday and found that “the numbers check out.” The fact-checking site then rated the tweet “mostly false.”
“The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo,” Trump tweeted.
The tweet from Trump came after Gateway Pundit reported on the change in the national debt under the two respective presidents and after former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain brought up the figures on Fox News.
Politifact wrote: “The numbers check out. And in fact, the total public debt has dropped another $22 billion since the Gateway Pundit article published, according to data from the U.S. Department of Treasury.”
Despite this, Politifact still gave Trump a rating of “mostly false” and titled its article, “Why Donald Trump’s tweet about national debt decrease in his first month is highly misleading.”
Politifact writer Aaron Sharockman quoted various experts who said that Trump’s administration is unlikely to be the reason for the decrease in debt and that Trump is focusing on the wrong set of numbers. (RELATED:EXCLUSIVE: Here’s The Clinton Foundation Conflict Of Interest Politifact Hides)
“Trump would be wise to not read too much into this figure, which sounds more noteworthy than it actually is. The national debt fluctuates up and down depending on the day,” Sharockman wrote. “While the debt is ‘down’ after one month, experts say that trend will reverse and the debt will continue to rise.”