Trump clarifies he will ‘never do anything’ to ‘jeopardize’ Social Security and Medicare
Former President Donald Trump clarified that he is not seeking to “jeopardize” Social Security or Medicare after causing a stir earlier this week.
“I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare,” Trump, 77, told Breitbart in a wide-ranging interview at Mar-a-Lago. “We’ll have to do it elsewhere. But we’re not going to do anything to hurt them.”
“There’s so many things we can do,” Trump went on. “There’s so much cutting and so much waste in so many other areas, but I’ll never do anything to hurt Social Security.”
On Monday, Trump mused about reforming entitlement programs during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting,” Trump said. “And in terms of, also, the theft and the bad management of entitlements — tremendous bad management of entitlements.”
“I know that they’re going to end up weakening Social Security because the country is weak. I mean, take a look at outside of the stock market,” Trump continued. “We’re going through hell. People are going through hell.”
A campaign spokesperson later said that Trump was talking about “cutting waste, not entitlements.”
His comments at the time appeared to backtrack from his vehemence that Republicans should not cut “a single penny” from either of the two programs.
Democrats instantly pounced on Trump’s initial comments about the two entitlement programs for seniors, which many economic experts contend is a top driver of the burgeoning US fiscal debt over the long term.
“Trump wants to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. Not on my watch,” President Biden, 81, shot back.
Biden’s campaign was also unconvinced by Trump’s clarification of his stance on entitlements.
“We believe what Donald Trump said and what he’s done to try to cut Social Security and Medicare,” Biden-Harris 2024 Spokesperson James Singer said in a statement.
“Seniors can trust President Biden, who has been clear he will never allow Social Security and Medicare to be cut on his watch.”
Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund is expected to go insolvent as soon as 2032, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Medicare HI trust fund is projected to reach insolvency by roughly 2030, per the CBO.
Economists have splintered over the exact dates of when those funds will run dry, but largely have a consensus that the two programs are unsustainable on the current trajectory.
A bevy of Republicans in both chambers have contemplated tweaks to Social Security and Medicare to ensure those programs remain solvent.
Some of the reforms being tossed around include raising the retirement age and enacting more stringent means testing — paring down benefits for wealthier retirees.
Biden repeatedly chastised Republicans during his State of the Union address last week, accusing them of clamoring for entitlement cuts.
But throughout his career, Biden has on occasion publicly backed similar tweaks to some of those programs to ensure they remain solvent.
In 1996, for example, he dangled the possibility of bumping the retirement age up one year or doing a 1% slash to the cost-of-living adjustment.
As president, neither man moved to seriously press forward with such adjustment.
Both, who are technically eligible for the two programs, have accused the other of threatening Medicare and Social Security.
“I will not let him destroy Social Security,” Biden said during a rally in Richmond, Virginia earlier this month. “I will not let him crash Medicare.”
