President Donald Trump is defending his approach to the ballooning U.S. national debt, telling reporters last month that the country will simply grow its way out of the problem. Speaking at Joint Base Andrews in late August, Trump said the debt has been a problem for 35 years, but argued the U.S. economy now has something it has never had before. "What we have now that we've never had before, we had a pretty good piece of it in my first term, as you know, is we have tremendous growth," Trump said. "And the way you take care of debt is with growth, and we have tremendous growth. We've never had growth like we have right now. The growth will take care of that very easily." The context behind the comments is significant. The U.S. national debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time on August 19, 2026, according to Treasury data. Debt held by the public is now roughly 101% of gross domestic product, a level last seen just after World War II, and the Congressional Budget Office projects it...