Today’s Jolt includes a long comment from Donald Trump about his economic record. He suggests that he was on track to start paying down some of the federal debt when Covid hit. This is untrue.

Every year during Trump’s administration, the deficit was higher than it had been the previous year. At a time of relative peace and prosperity, deficits were going up. To pay down debt, we would have had to have surpluses, which we were nowhere close to reaching.

This was the fault of Congress and the voters, not just of Trump. But what he’s saying is false. Accurate recall of recent economic history is not a strong suit of Trump — as it is not of Biden, either.