Democrats could hardly believe their good fortune. During his State of the Union address last week, President Joe Biden vowed to stop Republicans who “want to put Social Security on the chopping block,” and just four days later, Donald Trump clumsily stepped on a highly relevant rake.
“[T]here is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting,” the former president said during an on-air phone interview on CNBC.
After Biden and his party pounced, the presumptive GOP nominee apparently thought it’d be in his interests to clean up the mess. Politico reported:
Former President Donald Trump is cleaning up comments he made last week, in which he seemingly entertained the idea of cutting Social Security. In an interview with Breitbart News, published on Thursday, Trump insisted he would not touch the social insurance program, nor would he pursue cuts to Medicare.
“I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare,” the Republican told the conservative outlet. “We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them.”
In context, when Trump said officials will “have to do it elsewhere,” he appeared to be referring to cutting federal spending and addressing the budget deficit.
On the surface, this might appear to resolve the matter. The former president appeared to use categorical language about the popular social-insurance programs, effectively taking them off the table. For Social Security and Medicare proponents, this must’ve seemed encouraging.
But just below the surface, it’s not nearly that simple.
For example, Trump now wants voters to believe he’ll “never” take steps to undermine Social Security and Medicare, but as a candidate in 2016, the Republican made identical campaign promises, which he proceeded to break.
“I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid,” Trump declared in 2015. “Every…
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