Trump: 'I'm the king of debt'

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president and self-described “king of debt,” offered a glimpse into his deal-making playbook Wednesday morning as he defended himself from Hillary Clinton's attacks.

“I’m the king of debt. I’m great with debt. Nobody knows debt better than me,” Trump told Norah O’Donnell in an interview that aired on “CBS This Morning.” “I’ve made a fortune by using debt, and if things don’t work out I renegotiate the debt. I mean, that’s a smart thing, not a stupid thing.”


“How do you renegotiate the debt?” O’Donnell followed up.

“You go back and you say, hey guess what, the economy crashed,” Trump replied. “I’m going to give you back half.”

Clinton blasted Trump's economic views in a speech on Tuesday, accusing him of gambling with the full faith and credit of the United States by flirting with a default on the debt.

“That could cause an economic catastrophe, and it would break 225 years of ironclad trust that the American economy has with Americans and with the rest of the world,” Clinton said. “Alexander Hamilton would be rolling in his grave. You see, we pay our debts.”

The real estate mogul countered that while he’s benefited from taking on debt in his business dealings, the U.S. is “sitting on a time bomb” with its national debt. President Barack Obama has grown the debt, Trump said, and Clinton “doesn’t have a clue” when it comes to debt reduction.

In a different interview Wednesday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America," Trump defended his use of bankruptcy laws in business dealings. The GOP nominee, who has been through four corporate bankruptcies, said he has "used brilliantly the laws of this country" in the business world, but never in his personal life. He said his history of bankruptcies is not unique within the business community.

“I’m running a business, you’ve got to understand. I’m running a business," Trump said when asked if those bankruptcies had hurt average Americans. "I’m running a business for myself, for my company, for my employees and for my family.”

Trump, presented by O’Donnell with reports from independent economists who say his proposals would balloon the national debt by $30 trillion, also said his plans would reverse the flow of corporations and jobs leaving the United States. He said he would turn the U.S. into an attractive destination for businesses by lowering tax rates.

“Companies now are leaving the United States, corporate inversion, they’re leaving the United States. We have almost five trillion dollars sitting out there, they can’t get the money back,” he said. “They can’t bring it in because there’s no mechanism to bring it back in and the tax is so high. I’m going to bring tremendous amount of money, tremendous amounts of jobs, tremendous amounts of companies.”