Trump calls for cuts to Social Security and Medicare: ‘A lot you can do’
Donald Trump just made clear he would like to cut Social Security and Medicare.
One year ago this month, Trump was attacking "potential GOP primary opponents" and "warning ... party leaders to stay away from the popular entitlement programs in their push to cut spending," causing a split in the GOP, Politico reported. "Lawmakers who once backed entitlement overhauls are now openly at odds with colleagues who’d prefer to soften their positions before they face voters in 2024. And a GOP presidential race that’s a referendum on Trump himself is now also becoming one on Medicare and Social Security."
But now, with all his Republican opponents gone, Trump himself is embracing cutting "entitlements," the life-saving programs Americans themselves pay into through deductions to their paychecks and through their taxes.
Last year in February, The Washington Post reported, Trump urged Republicans to not cut “a single penny” from Social Security or Medicare – while reminding that "Each of his White House budget proposals included cuts to Social Security and Medicare programs."
Trump has grown more open in revealing what a second Trump term in the White House would likely look like.
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On Friday at Mar--Lago Trump hosted Hungarian president Viktor Orbán, a Christian nationalist who has been described as a “neo-fascist dictator,” and “the Pimp of Putinism.”
He has been openly praising dictators in his rally speeches, as he did in this video from last year:
And now, on Monday, Trump told CNBC, "there is a lot you can do" to cut Social Security and Medicare.
“So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting,” Trump told CNBC's Joe Kernen (video below), NBC News reports. “And in terms of, also, the theft and the bad management of entitlements — tremendous bad management of entitlements — there’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do.”
Trump on CNBC's Squawk Box this morning: "There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting." pic.twitter.com/VkHXK9p4Er
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 11, 2024
Trump's use of the word "also" is key.
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The Biden campaign wasted no time in responding to Trump's remarks:
Not on my watch. https://t.co/RAHjjUlGDa
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 11, 2024
"A Trump campaign spokesman said he was referring only to 'cutting waste and fraud,' but did not provide additional policy details on how he’d go about that or how much can be saved," NBC News added. The campaign's statement would appear to be incongruent with Trump's "also" remark.
Watch the videos above or at this link.