Much like President Joe Biden, Donald Trump sees an opportunity to pummel his GOP rivals on their support for slashing Social Security and Medicare. Unlike Biden, Trump actually sought to cut the popular programs while he was in the White House.
In fact, Trump routinely released proposed budgets that targeted Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for hundreds of billions in cuts collectively.
In 2019, Vox reported that over the next decade, Trump’s 2020 budget proposal sought to spend $1.5 trillion less on Medicaid by diverting $1.2 trillion to a block-grant program in the states, $25 billion less on Social Security, and $845 billion less on Medicare.
The Trump administration said some of those reductions would result from cost savings rather than actual cuts in benefits, but the intent was very clearly an effort to cut the programs, particularly Medicaid and Social Security.
Trump made a similar push in his 2021 budget proposal.
And yet, last month, Trump released a video in which he warned House Republicans not "to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security." Trump's admonishment came as House Republicans were raising the specter of leveraging the debt ceiling negotiation to secure social-safety-net cuts.
It's a well-worn path for Trump—pay no attention to what I do, just internalize my vaporous rhetoric.
In his 2016 bid, Trump regularly pledged to "save" Social Security and leave them untouched, a contrast he relished using against his fiscally hawkish Republican opponents.
As 2020 campaigning got underway, Trump made the mistake of admitting on camera that slashing the programs was indeed on his radar.
"Will entitlements ever be on your plate?" a CNBC reporter asked in a Jan. 20, 2020, interview.
"At some point, they will be," Trump responded, "At the right time, we will take a look at that."
Clearly, the admission didn't land well because three days later, Trump tweeted, "Democrats are going to destroy your Social Security. I have totally left it alone, as promised, and will save it!"
Now, as Trump eyes his 2024 competition, he's rediscovered religion once again on saving the popular programs.
Ignoring his record in office, this week, Trump spokesperson Steve Cheung sent a statement to several outlets saying, “President Trump has been clear where he stands on the issue. Others will have to decide which side they’re on. And others will have to answer to past positions they’ve taken.”
That last line is where Trump sees his golden ticket to the '24 nomination, because nearly all of his chief rivals spent their Tea Party years in government singing the praises of then-Rep. Paul Ryan's bare-bones budgets and voting to slash the federal programs.
The Washington Post found that nearly everyone from Florida Gov. DeSantis to former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley either took votes or bullish stances or both on significantly reforming Social Security and Medicare.
As a congressional member, DeSantis voted three times to raise the retirement age for Social Security and decrease spending on it.
“I support what Ryan is trying to do in terms of reforming entitlements,” DeSantis stated in a 2012 newspaper questionnaire. “It’s not a voucher, it’s premium support.”
But DeSantis isn't alone. Former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem all cast votes for Ryan's massive budget cuts while members of the House.
Haley wasn't in Congress but jumped on the Tea Party bandwagon anyway.
“What they need to be doing is looking at entitlements,” Haley said in a 2010 interview on Fox News. “Look at Social Security. Look at Medicaid. Look at Medicare. Look at these things, and let’s actually go to the heart of what is causing government to grow, and tackle that.”
She also hailed Ryan's efforts to scale back Medicare for “trying to bring common sense to this world of insanity.”
It's a target-rich environment for Trump, and he will surely be screaming his support for Social Security and Medicare from the rooftops—never mind what he would have done to the programs if Democrats hadn't had the power to stop him.
Sarah Longwell is a longtime Republican strategist and prominent never-Trumper. Her podcast, The Focus Group, is a peek at the thousands of hours of focus groups she has conducted all across the country. Sarah comes on to give her thoughts about the state of the current Republican Party and why its future remains bleak.
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