Fox Host Admits Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill Will ‘Run Up the Debt'
Faulkner, 59, made the concession while interviewing Fox Business analyst Jackie DeAngelis, who agreed that the megabill, which passed the Senate on Tuesday with Vice President JD Vance as the tiebreaker, 'definitely' has 'some issues.'
DeAngelis explained the debt added by the Senate-amended version of the bill is 'substantially higher' than what the House narrowly passed last month, which was already too significant for some fiscal hawks—and Elon Musk—to stomach.
'Nobody wants to add to the national debt, especially with interest rates where they are,' DeAngelis noted. 'We already pay a trillion dollars a year to service that debt.'
The 44-year-old host made clear she is not necessarily opposed to Trump's beloved bill. She said that the tax cuts included in it, which are primarily expected to benefit the ultra-wealthy, will be a boon to the U.S. economy. If true, she said that economic growth can eventually erase the multi-trillion-dollar deficit.
'If you are a student of Reagan economics and you think back to the '80s and Reagan's policies, which are very similar to Trump's, the answer to those folks is that we are going to grow our way out of it,' said DeAngelis. 'You stimulate the economy. You cut taxes for people and businesses. That gets the engine going. That pays for what they're saying will be added to the national debt.'
Both hosts asserted that the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan analytical arm of Congress, cannot be trusted for accurate estimates of the U.S. economy and debt, citing instances where the office has made errors. The CBO estimates that the Senate version of Trump's bill will add $3.3 trillion to the U.S. budget deficit over the next decade, through 2034.
DeAngelis reiterated her point that U.S. economic growth can offset the additional debt burden imposed by the mega bill. The CBO is not considering this hypothetical, she claimed.
'What they can do is crunch the numbers as they are right now,' she said. 'What they can't predict and what the Republicans can't give them is some tangible evidence of what the growth will be when all the policies go into place.'
DeAngelis also claimed that the administration is finding or making money in all sorts of 'little places' that need to be considered. This, she said, comes from tariff revenue, DOGE cuts, and even Trump's 'Gold Card Program,' which grants foreigners who pay $5 million a visa to live and work in the United States.
It would require the sale of more than 7 million gold cards—at $5 million apiece—to erase the current national debt, which is around $36 trillion as of Tuesday afternoon.
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