| | | | SURPRISE! The budget deficit is soaring! 🚀🚀🚀 |  | | Here's a headline you might have missed amid the onslaught of news about Julian Assange, William Barr, Nipsey Hussle and Michael Avenatti: "US budget deficit running 15% higher than a year ago."
The story cites this monthly report from the Treasury Department detailing these few eye-popping facts:
1) The budget deficit grew $146.9 million in the month of March alone.
2) The deficit for this fiscal year is now $691 billion -- a 15% increase (or roughly $100 billion) from where we were at this point in 2018.
3) Treasury is projecting that the deficit will surge over $1 trillion by the end of the fiscal year in September.
To which, our politicians have responded: 😒
"Nobody cares," White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney reportedly told a group of Republicans who wondered why President Donald Trump wasn't going to mention the ever-growing deficit in his State of the Union Speech earlier this year.
That's a massive change from where Trump, Mulvaney and the rest of the Republican Party were on the dangers of debt and deficits just a few years ago. Here's Trump talking to Sean Hannity in 2016 about how easily he will balance the federal budget:
"It can be done. ... It will take place and it will go relatively quickly. ... If you have the right people, like, in the agencies and the various people that do the balancing ... you can cut the numbers by two pennies and three pennies and balance a budget quickly and have a stronger and better country."
So, well, it hasn't turned out that way. At all.
Here's the kicker: Trump isn't likely to pay a price -- either within his own party or the broader electorate -- for the soaring deficit. Less than 50% of people in a January Pew poll said that lowering the federal deficit should be a top priority of Washington policymakers. That's down, rapidly, from 72% who said the same earlier this decade.
The Point: Deficits have lost their salience as a political issue. But that doesn't mean they are going away. And, at some point, our political (and economic) systems will be forced to deal with our growing mountain of debt.
-- Chris | | "I know nothing about WikiLeaks."
-- President Donald Trump when asked if he still "loves" WikiLeaks by reporters this morning, after its founder, Julian Assange, was arrested. Trump has often praised WikiLeaks, including saying he loved the organization in 2016. | | | THROWBACK THURSDAY FACT CHECK | | Joe Biden is considering running for president ... again (and is expected to announce his candidacy later this month). Can Biden's 1988 and 2008 campaign announcements give us clues to this year's announcement? CNN fact checker Holmes Lybrand has more on exactly when Biden officially announced his past two presidential runs:
The as-of-yet-I'm-currently-undecided Joe Biden has considered running for the presidency at least five different times and has actually tried his luck twice before: Once in 1987 and then again in 2007.
During the election cycle for '80, Biden considered running and even had the paperwork filled out. Ultimately he never sent it in, biding his time (ha) until June 9, 1987 for his debut as a presidential contender.
That failed. Quickly.
His campaign collapsed just three months after it started, when reports of his many, many instances of plagiarism bubbled up in the press.
On January 7, 2007, Biden made his trajectory clear on "Meet the Press," saying he intended to seek the presidency. He made it official on January 31 -- 10 days before a certain Sen. Obama would announce the start of his own historic campaign.
When primary votes rolled in from the Iowa caucuses and it became clear Biden didn't stand a chance, he announced his withdrawal -- just one year after announcing his run. He ended up being Obama's Vice President.
Have a topic you want to see fact checked in The Point? Drop us a line: Lauren.Dezenski@cnn.com. | | Go behind the scenes of now-Rep. Ayanna Pressley's campaign
Lesley Stahl is a BOSS
India's election is the largest Democratic exercise in the world
"Biohacking" looks a lot like disordered eating
What ever happened to Julian Assange's cat?
Also, Happy National Pet Day !!
TWINS IN SPACE
This is ... a situation | | | "Everyday" from Weyes Blood's latest album is v. v. good. | | WHERE DO THE DEMS STACK UP? | |  | See who's shaking up the Democratic rankings | | | Whoa! A *new* addition, coupled with a first-ever tie for first place, made for a wild month in The Point's latest ranking of 2020 Democrats. | |
LAUREN'S CAMPAIGN TRAIL LATEST | | Julián Castro: Participates in his CNN town hall tonight from Washington, DC, airing at 10 p.m. Eastern.
Elizabeth Warren: Wants to institute a 7% tax on corporate profits of more than $100 million.
Joe Biden: Sought letters of support from segregationists during the fight against bussing in the late '70s, CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports.
Tulsi Gabbard: Says she has qualified for the upcoming DNC-sponsored debates by reaching the 65,000-donor threshold.
Programming note: We've got a CNN town hall-o-rama coming up on Monday, April 22, with FIVE back-to-back candidate town halls in New Hampshire, co-hosted with the The Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School.
Here's the line-up: - 7 p.m. ET: Sen. Amy Klobuchar
- 8 p.m. ET: Sen. Elizabeth Warren
- 9 p.m. ET: Sen. Bernie Sanders
- 10 p.m. ET: Sen. Kamala Harris
- 11 p.m. ET: South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg
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