Former President and 2024 candidate Donald Trump released a video message on Friday, warning GOP lawmakers not to cut critical entitlement programs; “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security.”
Trump’s comments come as a battle is heating up over the debt ceiling between Congress and the White House.
“Cut waste, fraud and abuse everywhere that we can find it and there is plenty there’s plenty of it,” Trump says. “But do not cut the benefits our seniors worked for and paid for their entire lives. Save Social Security, don’t destroy it.”
From Politico:
Trump’s position echoes his long-held, albeit unorthodox, conviction that the Republican Party should stay away from attaching themselves to entitlement reform. Prior to being elected president, Trump was highly critical of then-Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for pushing austerity budgets during the Obama years. As a candidate for president, he insisted he would preserve both Medicare and Social Security. There was never any serious discussion of doing so during his time in office, though he obliquely hinted he may consider it in a second term.
Nevertheless, in issuing his statement now, Trump places his fellow Republicans in a political corner. Several of them have openly discussed usingusing the looming debt ceiling standoff to extract cuts in non-discretionary spending, though party leadership has not fully embraced such a demand.
Over the last few months Trump himself has insisted that congressional Republicans use the debt ceiling as a leverage point to achieve policy objectives, despite having done no such thing during any of the times the debt ceiling was lifted when he was president. But his statement makes clear he views certain pursuits as off limits. And it puts him at least partially on the same page as Biden, who has not only insisted he won’t cut Social Security or Medicare but excoriated Republicans for suggesting they would.
Watch the video above. More over at Politico:
Trump gave a warning to GOP lawmakers today: “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security." https://t.co/XXwzSAKzNO
— POLITICO (@politico) January 20, 2023
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