IT COULD have been the ultimate gotcha moment, but instead, Today host Karl Stefanovic was left stumped after trying to trip up Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The interview, broadcast on Channel 9, was all set up to embarrass the PM over the shocking level of national debt accrued under his leadership.

A graphic had been specially prepared to be displayed showing the astonishing figure, ticking over by the second, which took up almost the length of the screen.

The problem? That figure was way off.

While the graphic displayed a 13-figure sum — more than $6.5 trillion — Stefanovic challenged Mr Turnbull over the “spiralling” debt.

“How can you promise tax cuts for middle income battlers when the debt in this country is spiralling out of control?” he asked. “Let’s look at the debt right now. Right now, that is the national debt where you are, it is at the bottom of the screen. Any idea what that number is?”

Thankfully, Mr Turnbull couldn’t see the graphic from his interview set-up, but Stefanovic insisted he answer the question.

“The net debt is around $360 billion. That is the net debt,” he replied.

The question seemed set up to challenge the Prime Minister on his answer, but the difference between the two figures was so far off it appeared Stefanovic was the one left stumped.

Rather than quoting the huge figure displayed on screen, the embarrassed host simply avoided the numbers and appeared to try and wipe the confused look from his face.

Without referencing the figure at all, Stefanovic awkwardly said a few times throughout the interview he was “distracted” by the rolling debt total that was “getting bigger by the minute”.

“That number is very distracting. I don’t know how you do it,” Stefanovic said. “A billion dollars a day, that’s a lot of debt. That’s the Labor Party slogan at the next election.”

Mr Turnbull did not challenge the “billion dollars a day” figure and admitted the government had “a lot of debt” to deal with, but said it was “left to us by the Labor Party”.

“We know debt is high. That’s why we are bringing the budget back into the black by 2021,” he said.

Mr Turnbull said Labor was responsible for “a lot of spending”, most of which the Coalition has not been able to constrain.

“But the important thing is that we believe Australians are paying too much tax. Labor believes they are not paying enough,” he said.