• After five years of relief, student-loan borrowers in default are subject to wage and federal benefits garnishment.
• Some retirees with student debt told BI they're worried their Social Security checks will be seized.
• Some also said they support Trump's intent to ensure borrowers pay back their student loans.

After years of working factory jobs, Mary Glod went to college in 1983, hoping that a degree would give her and her two children a better life.

Now 73, Glod still has $31,000 in student debt, and her Social Security checks are just about the only income keeping her afloat in retirement. She hasn't been paying due to pandemic relief, and her projected student-loan payment of nearly $300 a month isn't feasible, she said.

"When you're only getting a thousand dollars a month, and you've got rent and you've got utilities, I just can't pay that much," Glod told Business Insider. "So it'll probably go into default."

Glod was free of the consequences of defaulting on her student loans for the past five years under a pandemic moratorium on collections. On May 5, however, Trump's Department of Education announced that collections on defaulted student loans are resuming, including the eventual garnishment of wages and federal benefits like Social Security.

Most federal student loans enter default after 270 days of missed payments.

Business Insider heard from over a dozen student-loan borrowers in retirement whose Social Security is their main source of income. While some of them are not in default, they're concerned that they're headed in that direction and don't know how to avoid garnishment of their federal benefits. Some also said they support Trump's motivation to restart collections and ensure loans are paid back.

Linda McMahon, Trump's education secretary, wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that restarting collections is necessary to restore accountability to the student-loan system.

"Borrowers who don't make payments on time will see their credit scores go down, and in some cases their wages automatically garnished," McMahon wrote. "Why? Not because we want to be unkind to student borrowers. Borrowing money and failing to pay it back isn't a victimless offense. Debt doesn't go away; it gets transferred to others."

Glod said she feels "guilty" that she's been unable to make debt payments, and if she could afford to, she would.

"I've always tried to pay bills that I owe and try to be responsible, but sometimes things happen and you just can't. It is just beyond your reach," Glod said. "I don't know how much they're going to take out my Social Security, and I can't stop them. So as long as I can keep the roof over my head and keep the lights on, I guess I'll just have to deal with it."

'I'd like to write a letter to my president that I helped put in office'

The Treasury Department can withhold up to 15% of a student-loan borrower's Social Security check, up to 15% of their federal salary, and up to 100% of a federal tax refund.

The Department of Education said it sent notices to 195,000 borrowers in default on May 5 that they have 30 days until their federal benefits might be seized. Later this summer, over 5 million defaulted borrowers could see their wages garnished. Borrowers in default have three options to avoid wage and benefits garnishment, but they take time and might require legal representation.

Cheri, 67, described herself as a staunch Republican who voted for Trump. She's a retiree with nearly $20,000 in student debt and relies on her $1,700 monthly Social Security checks and inconsistent pay from a freelance job. She's not pleased with the collections restart.

"For them to come right out and say, 'Well, we're putting people in collections,' that really angers me," Cheri said. "Actually, I'd like to write a letter to my president that I helped put in office and say, 'Whoa, wait a minute, buddy. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's right at all.'"

Cheri decided to go to college in the early 2000s because she thought that, as a single mom like Glod, a college degree would allow her to earn more money through a steady career. She eventually dropped out because her student loans became too burdensome, and she acknowledged that she wished she had thought harder about the implications of taking out a loan before she did so.

She said that she supports the Trump administration's stance that loans should be paid back, and she made payments as often as she could. But she has not paid off her debt since the pandemic, and she's not financially prepared to start back up again.

"When I start reading about coming after us and attacking our Social Security checks, I thought, 'Oh my God, I'm going to end up on the streets,' because you can't stop it," Cheri said.

Cheri said she isn't sure what her future student-loan payments will look like, and whether she'll end up defaulting. She said that she believes that "if you borrow something, you have to give it back," but she doesn't think the abrupt restart of collections is the right approach.

"I'm not going to bash the Trump administration. But that being said, I think that turning people over to collections is a very drastic move after what we just went through over the past four years," Cheri said. "I'm opposed to that."

'I'm just scared that I won't get next month's check'

Vickie Bright, 64, received a letter from her student-loan servicer on April 10 that her account is 180 days past due and would be reported to credit agencies.

To make up for her missed payments, her servicer sent her a billing statement with a $2,830 payment due on May 13 — a big surge from her regular $350 monthly payments. She said she can't afford those extra bills. Social Security is her only income — and now she's concerned that income will soon be diminished.

"During the pandemic, I kept all my bills paid. And so my credit score was going up, and now I'm sure it's just going to hit rock bottom again," Bright said. "It impacts every aspect of your life. I wake up in the morning and I think about it. I'm just scared that I won't get next month's check."

The New York Federal Reserve's quarterly household debt and credit report found that in the first quarter of 2025, the number of student-loan borrowers who moved into serious delinquency surged to 8.04%, up from 0.8% one year prior. The report's researchers said on a press call that following the pandemic pause on collections and credit reporting, the increase was expected, but it means that millions more borrowers are at risk of facing the severe consequences of default.

Bright said she's going to contact her servicer for help getting on an affordable repayment plan, but she doesn't see an end in sight to her student-loan payments.

"It is unbelievable that I live in America and they prize dollars over people," Bright said. "It's kind of heartbreaking because at least I still have a home at the moment. And there are people who don't, and they still expect this stuff from them. It's hopeless on top of hopeless."

Do you have a story to share about your student loans? Are you concerned about defaulting? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• This summer, millions of defaulted student-loan borrowers could face wage and federal benefits garnishment.
• They have options to avoid those consequences, but some routes can take longer than others.
• Options include loan consolidation, loan rehabilitation, and bankruptcy.

This summer, millions of student-loan borrowers could lose some of their wages and federal benefits if they don't start making payments.

They have options to avoid those consequences — but it won't be easy.

After President Donald Trump's administration restarted collections on defaulted student loans on May 5, his Education Department said it sent notices to 195,000 defaulted borrowers that some of their federal benefits, like Social Security, may start being withheld in early June.

"Later this summer, all 5.3 million defaulted borrowers will receive a notice from Treasury that their earnings will be subject to administrative wage garnishment," the department said. Most federal borrowers enter default when they have not made a payment in over 270 days.

Business Insider has spoken to student-loan borrowers behind on payments and worried about how they'll budget th restart and navigate wage garnishment. Millions have been free of benefits garnishment and negative credit reporting for the past five years under a pandemic pause that began under Trump and continued under former President Joe Biden. Now that collections have restarted, borrowers in default can tap into three different options to evade long-term consequences: loan rehabilitation, loan consolidation, or bankruptcy.

Rae Kaplan, a student-loan attorney based in Chicago, told Business Insider that while default consequences were standard before the pandemic, the five-year pause brings extra stress to the collections restart because "a lot of people took this out of their budget," adding that "five years is a long time" to get used to not paying.

"So I think this period where they start ramping up collection activities is going to cause a lot of panic out there for borrowers," Kaplan said. Some borrowers in default previously told BI that they're not confident they'll be able to avoid garnishment.

Here are some options that defaulted student-loan borrowers have to avoid having some of their wages and federal benefits seized.

Loan rehabilitation

Loan rehabilitation can take months, but it has several benefits, including eventual removal of the borrower's default status from their credit reports.

To rehabilitate a defaulted loan, the borrower needs to contact their student loan holder and sign an agreement to make nine payments within 20 days of the due date during a period of 10 consecutive months.

The payment amount is intended to be affordable; according to Federal Student Aid, the payment will be equal to up to 15% of the borrower's discretionary income divided by 12. Kaplan said that it's helpful to hire an attorney or an advocate to negotiate low payments, and it's possible that borrowers can end up with payments as low as $5 a month through this route.

Notably, wage and benefits garnishment will continue during part of the loan rehabilitation process, and the benefits that are seized would be in addition to the agreed-upon rehabilitation payments. Garnishment will continue until the borrower has made at least five rehabilitation payments or the loan is no longer in default.

Additionally, borrowers can only rehabilitate a defaulted student loan once; if the loan defaults again, rehabilitation will not be an option.

"Once we get you rehabilitated, then your credit score will go up," Kaplan said. "So it's a nice feature that you can both get back to current and in good standing, get your loans back into good status, and get that negative credit removed from your credit report."

Loan consolidation

Consolidating a defaulted student loan is quicker than rehabilitation, but the record of the default will remain on the borrower's credit history.

Borrowers can apply with Federal Student Aid to consolidate their defaulted student loans into a federal direct consolidation loan. To be approved for consolidation, the borrower must agree to pay off the consolidated loan under an income-driven repayment plan or make three consecutive, on-time, full monthly payments before consolidating.

After the loan is consolidated, the borrower can make use of all federal student-loan benefits, including deferments, forbearances, and loan forgiveness.

Bankruptcy

If a defaulted borrower does not think that consolidation or rehabilitation is feasible, they can file for bankruptcy.

Dustin Baker, an Iowa bankruptcy attorney, told BI that filing for bankruptcy is "a very efficient way" to stop wage and benefits garnishment because once a bankruptcy petition is filed, creditors are no longer allowed to contact and collect from the borrower.

"If nothing else, it's kind of a four or five-month break to figure out what to do," Baker said, adding that he's already received an increase in requests from borrowers worried about collections on defaulted student loans.

Prior to 2022, student-loan borrowers had to clear a high and burdensome threshold to discharge their loans in bankruptcy. However, Biden issued new guidance in November 2022 to streamline the process, and Baker said he's had much greater success discharging borrowers' student loans in recent years.

"It seems like it's moving more quickly now," Baker said. "They've allocated the appropriate resources, and it's not a partisan thing. Biden started this process, Trump reaffirmed it, and it sounds like the administration at least is providing the appropriate resources to make it happen."

• The New York Federal Reserve found that the share of delinquent student-loan borrowers surged.
• In the first quarter of 2025, 8.04% of borrowers transitioned to serious delinquency, up from 0.8% a year prior.
• It's largely a result of the end of the five-year pause on credit reporting for borrowers behind on payments.

Millions of student-loan borrowers are behind on payments, and it's putting them at greater risk of wage garnishment and seizure of federal benefits.

On Tuesday, the New York Federal Reserve released its quarterly household debt and credit report — and student-loan borrowers were a red flag in the new data.

In the first quarter of 2024, 0.8% of student-loan borrowers moved into serious delinquency, or being at least 90 days behind on payments. The New York Fed's Monday report found that in the first quarter of 2025, that number surged to 8.04%.

New York Fed researchers told reporters on a Tuesday press call that an increase in delinquencies was expected. For the past five years, student-loan borrowers behind on payments have not faced collections or consequences for defaulting or delinquency, including having those lapses affect their credit scores. The moratorium on credit reporting ended in October 2024, so the researchers said it made sense that reported delinquencies would rise — it was the extent of the surge that was unexpected.

The New York Fed also found that many newly delinquent borrowers — those who were current on their loans in the fourth quarter of 2025 but have at least one loan 90 or more days past due in the first quarter of 2025 — have seen drops in their credit scores. The data showed that 2.2 million of those borrowers saw their credit scores drop more than 100 points, and 1 million of those borrowers saw at least a 150-point drop.

The New York Fed's blog post on student-loan delinquencies said that those credit score drops "will increase borrowing costs or seriously limit their access to credit like mortgages and auto loans."

The New York Fed also said that while the surge in delinquencies was drastic following the five-year pause on payments, the rates are now at the "pre-pandemic 'normal,' with more than 10 percent of balances and roughly six million borrowers either past due or in default."

"The ramifications of student loan delinquency are severe," the blog post said. President Donald Trump restarted collections on defaulted student loans on May 5 and sent notices to nearly 200,000 borrowers in default that they will begin to face garnishment of federal benefits in 30 days if they don't begin making payments.

New York Fed researchers said that there is still time for borrowers who contributed to the surge in delinquencies to bring themselves back to good standing. For example, the researchers said, many of them might not have been aware that payments and credit reporting were resuming, and they might have had the capabilities to make payments had they known.

Still, some borrowers in default previously told Business Insider that they're aware that credit reporting restarted, and they cannot afford to make payments, so they're expecting to face garnishment of federal benefits, and eventually, wages.

"They're going to have to come and take it from me, and then I've got to figure out somehow how to live past that point," a defaulted student-loan borrower said.

Do you have a story to share about your student loans? Are you in default, or concerned about defaulting? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• Trump is restarting collections on defaulted student loans on May 5.
• Student-loan borrowers in default told BI they're not able to afford a payment restart.
• Trump's administration said the restart is necessary following Biden's nearly five-year collection pause.

James Southern, 63, decided to go to business school in the early 2000s to further his career.

"I loved the learning atmosphere, I loved the other students, I loved everything about it," he told Business Insider. "But at the end, once I attained what I was reaching for, the rewards have never transpired."

Southern said he made every effort to get a well-paid job that would help him pay off his student loans. He recalls sending in over 50 job applications, without success. During that time, he wasn't able to afford his student-loan payments, and the unpaid interest surged his balance as he fell further behind.

When President Donald Trump's Department of Education paused collections on defaulted student-loan debt at the start of the pandemic, it was a big relief to Southern. Five years later, that relief is coming to an end, and he still can't afford to make payments.

"They're looking at me paying $1,500 a month, and I told them, that's just impossible," Southern said. "I can't do that and function and pay bills and do what I need to do on a monthly basis with that kind of debt structure. I can't do it."

The department gave borrowers two weeks to prepare. Starting May 5, the consequences of default could include wage garnishment and seizure of federal benefits, like a portion of a Social Security check.

BI heard from dozens of student-loan borrowers who are either in default or concerned they will soon default. They said they're fearful of the looming collections and their ability to afford extra payments. While some of them said they want to fulfill their obligations, the sudden announcement leaves them with a short timeframe to make financial preparations.

That's the case for Southern, who now earns a five-figure salary at a security company. While he doesn't regret pursuing an education, all he has is a six-figure defaulted student-debt load to show for it. He's unsure what to do next, and he anticipates the worst-case scenario: The department will take his money, whether he likes it or not.

"If they are steadfast on this $1,500 a month, then again, there's no way I can pay that," Southern said. "So they're going to have to come and take it from me, and then I've got to figure out somehow how to live past that point."

An unfulfilled student-loan forgiveness promise

Holly Bechard, 42, is past due on her federal student loans but not yet in default, according to documents reviewed by BI. She's worried she'll soon enter that phase, and she said that she was hoping for student-loan forgiveness under Biden and is disappointed that that promise was never fulfilled.

Biden announced his first broad student-loan forgiveness plan in August 2022, but the Supreme Court later struck it down following a series of lawsuits challenging the relief's constitutionality. While Biden made a second attempt at relief, it was also met with legal challenges, and his administration was unable to carry it through before his term was up.

"I feel like it's just been very hard to motivate myself to pay them when there was so much talk about forgiving them," Bechard said.

Linda McMahon, Trump's education secretary, wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that the collections restart is intended to restore accountability for student-loan borrowers.

"For political gain, he dangled the carrot of loan forgiveness in front of young voters, among other things by keeping in place a temporary Covid-era deferment program," McMahon wrote. "Thus the Education Department allowed students to rack up a massive debt that is now long past due."

The Department of Education said it would start sending notices to defaulted student-loan borrowers before May 5, notifying them of their default status and urging them to contact their servicers to make preparations to restart payments.

Bechard isn't feeling confident.

"I'm never going to pay them off," she said. "I don't have any problem paying back what I borrowed, but I do have a problem with the lack of transparency and all of the false promises that I feel like the federal government has made to me over the years."

'I'm barely scraping by'

A student-loan borrower enters default once they've been behind on payments for more than 270 days. Biden instituted a one-year on-ramp period that ended in October 2024, during which borrowers who missed payments would be free of credit report hits. That means that this summer, there will likely be a wave of defaults as more borrowers reach the 270-day mark after the on-ramp ended.

Data from the Department of Education said that over 5 million borrowers have not made a monthly payment in over 360 days and are in default, and 4 million borrowers are in late-stage delinquency, having been behind on payments for 91 to 180 days

"As a result, there could be almost 10 million borrowers in default in a few months," the department said. "When this happens, almost 25 percent of the federal student loan portfolio will be in default."

Matthew Green, 36, said defaulting is inevitable. He worked two jobs in college to finance most of his education, but he still had to take out student loans to pay the remainder. After joining the Peace Corps post-graduation, Green developed medical issues and was unable to work, so he fell behind on his student-loan payments.

He now works as a high school custodian, and student-loan payments are not feasible alongside his other monthly expenses.

"I'm barely scraping by just to make ends meet. I'm going paycheck to paycheck, and this is going to kill me," Green said.

He added that he's not "against paying back loans, and it's not the government's fault or the school's fault. That's the way the cards fell. But I don't know what I'm going to do, having to pay back these loans right away. I'm just getting caught up with the bills I hadn't been able to pay in the previous years. So it's pretty scary."

Are you a student-loan borrower in default or concerned about falling behind? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at asheffey.97. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Trump is resuming collections on defaulted student loans for the first time in five years.
• It means borrowers will soon be subject to the consequences of default.
• Penalties include withholding tax refunds and a percentage of a borrower's Social Security benefits.

President Donald Trump is reviving a program that withholds federal benefits like tax refunds and Social Security from student-loan borrowers in default.

Trump's Department of Education announced on Monday that it will resume collections on defaulted borrowers beginning on May 5. Since March 2020, the department has not collected on defaulted student loans or enforced the consequences of defaulting as part of its pandemic relief measures.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that the relief is over, and borrowers need to make on-time payments or face the consequences. Those include harm to their credit scores and having federal benefits withheld.

"Going forward, the Department of Education, in conjunction with the Department of Treasury, will shepherd the student loan program responsibly and according to the law, which means helping borrowers return to repayment—both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation's economic outlook," McMahon said in a statement.

Federal Student Aid will enforce this by working with the Treasury Department to restart the Treasury Offset Program, which allows the government to collect tax refunds and certain federal benefits, like Social Security, until the student-loan borrower makes their payment.

Here's what borrowers should know about the program.

What student-loan borrowers in default can expect in the collections process

The Education Department said that over the next two weeks, it will send emails to defaulted borrowers with options to make plans to get out of default before involuntary collections begin.

After that, the Treasury Department will once again begin administering the Treasury Offset Program. Most federal student-loan borrowers enter default if they have not made a payment for over 270 days. At that point, the borrower would be sent to the offset program, which would collect the overdue debt by holding back, or offsetting, money from a federal payment to a debtor.

A Treasury fact sheet said that up to 100% of a federal tax refund, up to 15% of a federal salary, and up to 15% of a borrower's Social Security benefits could be withheld.

The Education Department also wrote in its press release that "later this summer, FSA will send required notices beginning administrative wage garnishment."

One option to exit default is loan rehabilitation. To start rehabilitation, borrowers have to contact their loan servicer, and they must agree in writing to make nine voluntary payments during a period of 10 consecutive months within 20 days of the due date. During this time, though, involuntary payments through the Treasury Offset Program might continue until the loan is no longer in default or the borrower has made at least five rehabilitation payments.

Five million student-loan borrowers have not made a payment in over 360 days, and an additional 4 million borrowers are in late-stage delinquency, having not made a payment for 91-180 days, per the Education Department.

That means millions of borrowers are at risk of soon facing the consequences of defaulting, and the implications are more widespread than the withholding of benefits; a drop in credit score would also make it difficult for borrowers to get approval to rent or buy homes.

Some advocates criticized the Trump administration's move to restart collections on defaulted student loans. Mike Pierce, executive director of advocacy group Student Borrower Protection Center, said in a statement that the move is "cruel, unnecessary, and will further fan the flames of economic chaos for working families across this country."

Are you a student-loan borrower in default or concerned about falling behind? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at asheffey.97. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• President Donald Trump is resuming collections on defaulted student loans for the first time in five years.
• On May 5, defaulted student-loan borrowers will start to face the consequences of falling behind.
• Those include the seizure of federal benefits such as Social Security and wage garnishment.

President Donald Trump's administration is resuming collections on defaulted student-loan borrowers for the first time in five years.

On Monday, the Department of Education announced that it would put defaulted borrowers back into repayment on May 5.

"Borrowers who don't make payments on time will see their credit scores go down, and in some cases their wages automatically garnished," Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote in an opinion piece alongside the announcement.

The department hasn't collected on defaulted student loans since March 2020, as one of the relief measures put in place at the onset of the pandemic. Starting in May, the Federal Student Aid office is set to restart the Treasury Offset Program, which withholds government benefits, including Social Security and tax refunds, from people with past-due payments. After 30 days, the Treasury Department would start garnishing wages for defaulted borrowers.

The department's press release said FSA would contact defaulted borrowers over the next two weeks to urge them to make plans to restart payments.

"If you are a student borrower with a federal loan balance and haven't been making payments, you must restart payments now," McMahon said. "Our Federal Student Aid office is providing every form of assistance we legally can to ensure that a monthly payment can fit into your budget."

More than 5 million student-loan borrowers are in default, or over 270 days past due. The New York Federal Reserve recently estimated that more than 9 million borrowers were behind on their bills but not yet in default after pandemic-era protections expired.

Some Democratic lawmakers have previously raised the alarm on the consequences of defaulting for student-loan borrowers. Last year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren led a group of her colleagues in urging the Biden administration to end the practice of withholding Social Security benefits for defaulted borrowers.

It's a "particularly devastating practice for seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Social Security as their sole source of income," the lawmakers said.

Trump's Education Department recommended that borrowers in default contact the Default Resolution Group to make a monthly payment or enroll in an income-driven repayment plan.

Are you a student-loan borrower in default or concerned about falling behind? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at asheffey.97. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• President-elect Donald Trump has called on Congress to raise or eliminate the debt ceiling.
• He said doing so before his term would put the onus on Joe Biden and let him avoid an early fight.
• Going over the debt ceiling could lead to a default and a deep recession.

The debt ceiling is the unexpected debate in Washington this week after President-elect Donald Trump threw the annual holiday-season government-funding talks into disarray.

Trump said he wanted to raise or eliminate the limit on how much the federal government can borrow. Doing so now would mean the much-debated move would happen on President Joe Biden's watch and be resolved before Trump takes office, when he'll want to implement his agenda without a fight over borrowing limits.

"Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling," Trump wrote Friday in a Truth Social post. "Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.'"

This all comes amid a chaotic scramble to reach a funding deal for the US government and avoid a shutdown when Friday ends. The debt ceiling was one of the sticking points Trump used to scrap a bipartisan deal to keep the government funded through March. Now he's revisiting a much-used political tool.

"Trump is right to identify that he doesn't want his fingerprints on increasing the debt ceiling, and he doesn't want to have to deal with it in six months while he's trying to pass what he considers a must-pass tax-extension bill," Elizabeth Pancotti, the director of special initiatives at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute think tank, told Business Insider.

A debt-ceiling breach has become a political tool — one that Trump is trying to wield for the last time

The debt ceiling limits the amount of money the federal government is allowed to borrow to pay for its programs and operations. If it's not regularly raised or suspended, the US government risks defaulting on its debt and failing to pay its bills.

This could compromise everyday Americans' access to crucial government programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, and housing vouchers. Len Burman, a fellow at the think tank Urban Institute, told BI that a default could also cause interest rates to rise drastically if investors no longer viewed the US government as a creditworthy borrower. That would mean Americans may face higher rates on mortgages and credit cards, which could lead to a broader financial crisis and deep recession.

Because of these widespread consequences, the debt ceiling has evolved into a political bargaining chip, and the US has repeatedly come close to breaching it over partisan disagreements, most recently in 2023. That's why some Democrats have long advocated abolishing the ceiling, arguing that Republicans weaponize it to push spending cuts. Sen. Elizabeth Warren capitalized on Trump's recent comments, writing Thursday morning on X that she agreed with him on terminating the debt limit.

During recent debt-ceiling standoffs, various plans to sidestep the limit were floated. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin told BI that the president could invoke a clause in the 14th Amendment that would declare a default and the debt ceiling that caused that default unconstitutional.

Other ideas to eliminate the debt ceiling have included minting a $1 trillion platinum coin, which some economists have said would allow the Treasury secretary to deposit the coin to pay off debts.

In an interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday, Trump said that Republicans who didn't support repealing the debt limit could face primary challenges; many Republicans have historically opposed getting rid of it, arguing that it's a check on borrowing. Trump told NBC News that Democrats had signaled they wanted to get rid of the debt limit and that he would "lead the charge" to do so.

The country will technically hit the debt ceiling at the start of next year, but the Treasury Department can hold off default and keep paying the bills through various accounting tricks, likely until late spring or early summer.