President Biden on Monday seized on comments from former President Trump suggesting there are ways to go about “cutting” entitlements, highlighting what will likely be a key campaign issue for the next eight months.
“Many of my Republican friends want to put Social Security and Medicare back on the chopping block again. If anyone tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age again, I will stop them. Working people built this country,” Biden told supporters in New Hampshire.
“Even this morning, Donald Trump said cuts to Social Security and Medicare are on the table again,” Biden continued. "The bottom line is, he's still at it. I'm never gonna allow that to happen. I won't cut Social Security. I won't cut Medicare."
The White House and Biden campaign spent much of Monday elevating the comments Trump made on CNBC’s SquawkBox, where the former president was pressed on how he plans to address long-term solvency issues with entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
“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 — there’s tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do.”
Trump did not provide any specifics on actions he would take to reform the programs, and his campaign quickly sought to clarify his remarks. A campaign spokesperson said Trump was referring to cutting waste and fraud, specifically.
The former president has been adamant that Republicans should not touch Social Security or Medicare, a break from GOP orthodoxy and from some primary rivals who argued steps needed to be taken, such as raising the retirement age, to ensure the programs were solvent for years to come.
But as president, every one of Trump’s White House budget proposals included cuts to Social Security and Medicare programs.
Republicans’ budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year included measures aimed at beefing up work requirements for Medicaid, while reducing annual government spending and targeting economic policies passed when Democrats last led both chambers of Congress.
