Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday distanced himself from his past support for privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age as potential future political foes seize on his previous ideas for the popular retirement program.
“We’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans,” DeSantis told Fox News. “I think that that’s pretty clear.”
As a congressman, DeSantis voted for nonbinding budget resolutions that would have made age 70 the new threshold for seniors to collect their federal benefits. A recent CNN KFile review review of DeSantis’ comments during his 2012 congressional campaign found support for privatizing Social Security as well.
The attempt by DeSantis to publicly walk back a position foundational to the fiscal conservatism that defined his early political career comes as former President Donald Trump has made support for Medicare and Social Security an early fault line in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. Trump has singled out DeSantis, who is traveling the country to promote his new book and raise his profile ahead of a highly anticipated campaign for president.
Unloading on his social media platform, Trump this week called DeSantis “the man who wants to cut Social Security and Medicare” and a “wheelchair over the cliff kind of guy, just like his hero, failed politician Paul Ryan.” The criticism revived an attack line Democrats used over a decade ago to undercut Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who proposed partial privatization of Medicare and Social Security in his budget blueprints and was named Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012. In an ad that aired in multiple swing states, an actor seemingly portraying Ryan wheeled an elderly woman to the edge of a cliff and pushed her over.
DeSantis has largely avoided engaging with Trump and didn’t previously respond to questions about his past…
Read the full article here