During a speech in Ohio, President Trump criticed the amount the US has spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and argued no-one had heard of the world „trillion“ until a decade ago: „We’re going to be coming out of there real soon. We’re going to get back to our country: where we belong, where we want to be,” he said. „But just think of it. We spent, as of three months ago, $7 trillion – not billion, not million – seven trillion-with-a-T. Nobody ever heard of the word a ‘trillion’ 10 years ago.“ We spent $7 trillion in the Middle East.“ Just a reminder. In 1981, the U.S. gross national debt exceeded the $1 trillion mark for the first time. As of today, the gross debt is $20,2 trillion, up from $9 trillion a decade ago.
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James Downey in Billy Madison by Tamra Davis, 1995
washingtonpost.com, Philip Bump, 29.03.2018
politico.com, Andrew Glass, 22.10.2017