Trump wants credit for a national debt reduction... that happened because of Barack Obama

As usual, Donald Trump watched Fox News in the morning and simply repeated on Twitter whatever nonsense Fox News showed. This time, Trump repeated a misleading statement by former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, claiming the national debt went down by $12 billion during Donald Trump's first day in office. An hour later Trump tweeted:

The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017

Turns out Herman Cain and Trump not only are misleading with their statements, but they are also showing how little they know about how the economy works. Here's the proof:

First of all, here's the evidence that Trump didn't even know about the "statistic", but he simply saw Herman Cain talking about it on Fox News:

Cain: "And here's another statistic that I haven't heard anybody talk about..."

(Natl debt is more than $19 TRILLION, so $12B is v small) https://t.co/pfJp67xBPs

— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) February 25, 2017

Second, according to Business Insider, the comparison Cain and Trump are making is a misleading fallacy. First, during the first month in office, all new presidents are still working with the previous presidents' budgets:

Additionally, the federal government is still operating under the budget passed before Trump came into office, so even if the overall debt decreased, his administration had little to do with it.

Second, when Barack Obama took office in 2009, the economy was still suffering from the financial collapse of just a few months prior, caused by the George W. Bush administration. Obama inherited Bush's budget and decided to take on debt to stimulate the economy. It was obvious the debt would go up under such circumstances during Obama's first month in office.

But 8 years later Obama made the economy turn around, increasing employment and decreasing poverty. Trump inherited that healthy economy and Obama's budget, so obviously the debt would go down slightly.

Thus, Trump wants to be credited for something he didn't do, and that was for all practical purposes, the result of Barack Obama's good handling of the economy.

Trump will be able to claim ownership of the economy's results after he signs his first budget into law. Then we'll see if the economy actually improved or not with Trump. But that will be visible until 2018.