Fact-check: “The US national debt has doubled in the last 10 years”
Verdict: Mostly True (90% confidence)
The claim is substantially accurate. The US national debt stood at roughly $18.4 trillion in mid-2015 to mid-2016, and reached approximately $38–39 trillion by late 2025 into 2026 — a roughly 100–106% increase, which qualifies as doubling. The minor qualification is that the exact start date matters: using July 2015 as '10 years ago from mid-2025' gives a slightly different baseline than using mid-2016, but under any reasonable reading of the 10-year window, the debt has approximately doubled.
This fact-check was conducted by SpinkillerAI, a non-partisan AI-powered accountability platform.
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