Donald Trump on Monday handed President Joe Biden a gift while calling in to CNBC.
When asked how the US could cut spending and his outlook on handling entitlements like Social Security and Medicare benefits, Trump suggested cuts could be made to the programs, which offer guaranteed financial support to retired and disabled workers.
"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," Trump told CNBC's Joe Kernen in a rambling response to the question that touched on the stock market, oil drilling, and his administration's response to the COVID pandemic.
He added: "I know that they're going to end up weakening Social Security because the country is weak," in an apparent suggestion that the Biden administration would make cuts to the program.
Trump's campaign quickly jumped into damage-control mode, sending out a press release saying that the former president's remarks had focused on "protecting entitlements like Social Security and Medicare" and that he "would get rid of waste and fraud."
But Biden seized upon Trump's remarks just as quickly, telling a crowd of voters in New Hampshire that Trump had said cuts to the programs were on the table. Biden vowed to protect the entitlements more than 70 million Americans rely on.
"I won't cut Social Security and I won't cut Medicare," Biden said, per CNN, adding: "I will protect and strengthen Social Security, Medicare and make the wealthy begin to pay their fair share."
And yet people will sadly still vote for trump despite this.Hell, I know people that will vote for him because of this. Some of them on SS and Medicare, because you see their benefits won't get cut because they earned them, it's the "freeloaders" that will lose their benefits.
This is why people dont need to freak out about Bidens re-election right now. He hasnt even started campaigning, he hasnt started hammering home who his opponent is and what that means. Trump has no policy wins and hes an insane incoherent mess of a person.
Why panic?
Anyone who was going to vote for him after everything that has happened is not changing their minds because of this.
"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,"
There are a ton of fence sitters out there that somehow still exist unfortunately.Im convinced that most of these fence-sitters are just Trump folks playing coy out of embarrassment of being lumped in with his die-hard fanatics.
The man used the word 'entitlements' three times in the same rambling sentence. But please, let's hyperfocus on Biden's questionable mental faculties.
This is why people dont need to freak out about Bidens re-election right now. He hasnt even started campaigning, he hasnt started hammering home who his opponent is and what that means. Trump has no policy wins and hes an insane incoherent mess of a person.People already know who Trump is.
isn't the amount spent on preventing medicare/social security fraud already several order of magnitude greater than the amount being defrauded?I don't know about that. Rick Scott defrauded Medicare for like a billion dollars all on his own.
Hell, I know people that will vote for him because of this. Some of them on SS and Medicare, because you see their benefits won't get cut because they earned them, it's the "freeloaders" that will lose their benefits.Ironically, if anyone deserves to have their SS benefits cut, it's his boomer voting base. They're the ones that destroyed the system, and they're set to be the only generation that doesn't face consequences for it.
This is why people dont need to freak out about Bidens re-election right now. He hasnt even started campaigning, he hasnt started hammering home who his opponent is and what that means. Trump has no policy wins and hes an insane incoherent mess of a person.
Im convinced that most of these fence-sitters are just Trump folks playing coy out of embarrassment of being lumped in with his die-hard fanatics.
They will still vote for him.
Its so funny how politicians know they cant openly support gutting social security but so many of them crave it so fucking badly that they cant keep their mouth shut.Because it is a ton of money that is going to people they deemed 'worthless' the working class poor who aren't even working. Why spend that money on them when they can spend it on the military or better yet tax cuts for billionaires.
This. I shake my head when people panic about the polls right now. Obviously a second Trump term would be a disaster. But as campaign season ramps up, Trump is going to continue to say moronic, divisive things and remind people why they dont want him.The thing that keeps me from worrying about polls is the fact that Trump has never cracked 50% and there's a ridiculous amount of undecideds
His ridiculous cult is going to vote for him. No one else will. He will get more votes than he should, but without a change before November it wont be enough for him to ooze his way back into the Oval Office.
Because it is a ton of money that is going to people they deemed 'worthless' the working class poor who aren't even working. Why spend that money on them when they can spend it on the military or better yet tax cuts for billionaires.I think it isn't about the money spent on people so much as the fact that it means people aren't forced to keep working until they die.
The thing that keeps me from worrying about polls is the fact that Trump has never cracked 50% and there's a ridiculous amount of undecideds
Like seriously, every poll is basically
Trump - 42%
Biden - 39%
He hasnt even started campaigning, he hasnt started hammering home who his opponent is and what that means.
isn't the amount spent on preventing medicare/social security fraud already several order of magnitude greater than the amount being defrauded?
"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,"
right now, payments towards social security STOP after $168k.
so stupid. so if someone has an annual salary of $1 million, they stop contributing towards social security (for everyone) by the end of February each year.
I think it isn't about the money spent on people so much as the fact that it means people aren't forced to keep working until they die.Kind of the same thing but yeah.
That really grinds their gears that the "peasants" might get to retire for any amount of time.
"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,"