Special Poll
On Monday, President Biden put a spotlight on former President Trump’s remarks about potentially “cutting” entitlement programs, setting the stage for a major campaign battleground over the coming eight months. Speaking to his supporters in New Hampshire, Biden underscored his commitment to protecting Social Security and Medicare from cuts. “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 declared.
Biden specifically referred to Trump’s recent comments, stressing, “Even this morning, Donald Trump said cuts to Social Security and Medicare are on the table again. 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 Biden administration and his campaign team dedicated considerable effort on Monday to amplify Trump’s statements made during an interview on CNBC’s SquawkBox. In the interview, Trump implied that there were options for “cutting” entitlements, mentioning, “So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting. 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.” However, Trump did not delve into specific plans for reforming these programs, and his campaign later clarified that he was referring to eliminating waste and fraud.
Despite Trump’s insistence that Republicans should steer clear of Social Security and Medicare—a stance that deviates from traditional GOP principles and contrasts with some of his primary competitors’ views—all of Trump’s budget proposals as president proposed reductions to these programs.
The Republican budget plan for the next fiscal year proposes enhancing work requirements for Medicaid and decreasing government spending annually, focusing on altering economic policies enacted under the last Democratic majority in Congress.