Veteran journalist Dan Rather turned President Donald Trump's own words against him in a new essay on his Substack, "Steady".

On Tuesday, the U.S. national debt surpassed $40 trillion, a level that has alarmed economists. The total now exceeds the size of the nation's entire annual economic output, and it has climbed from roughly $36 trillion when Trump returned to office in January 2025. Rather argued that Trump once promised to eliminate the national debt during his first term — a pledge that now stands among his unfulfilled ones.

"You may remember back in 2016 when Trump proclaimed himself the 'king of debt,' promising to eliminate it in eight years," Rather wrote. "Forty trillion dollars later, that was just another grift. Meanwhile, he is treating the U.S. Treasury like his own personal piggy bank, gleefully spending close to a billion dollars in taxpayer dollars to glorify himself with gilded pieces of junk, mega-ballrooms, and monuments for which no one asked."

The debt milestone arrives as many Americans place affordability among their chief concerns ahead of the midterm elections. According to some experts, rising debt levels will likely make it more expensive for Americans to borrow money to buy goods such as cars and appliances. The connection runs through the bond market: Treasury yields serve as benchmarks for consumer loan rates, so heavier federal borrowing can feed through to costlier credit for households. The government's interest bill has already grown into one of the largest single line items in the federal budget, with interest payments now exceeding what Washington spends on national defense, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. The borrowing has faced no congressional brake in the interim: the debt ceiling is suspended through January 2027 under the fiscal package Trump signed into law in July 2025, a deadline that will require Congress to raise or reinstate the cap — the kind of standoff that has repeatedly pushed Washington toward fiscal brinkmanship.