On Monday, former President Donald Trump hinted at a potential reconsideration of his stance on entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This comes after his previous opposition to making changes to these programs and his criticism of Republican presidential primary rivals who supported such changes.
In an interview with CNBC, Trump was asked if his perspective on handling entitlement programs had shifted, especially in light of the national debt. He responded, “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.”
Following the interview, President Joe Biden responded to a clip his campaign made of Trump’s comments: “Not on my watch.” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt later clarified to CNN that Trump was “clearly talking about cutting waste, not entitlements.”
During his presidency, Trump’s budget proposals included spending cuts to Social Security and Medicare, primarily by targeting disability benefits and reducing provider payments. However, Trump has repeatedly pledged to “always defend Medicare and Social Security” during his election campaign.
Trump also criticized former GOP rival Nikki Haley for her support for reforming these entitlement programs. Haley had proposed increasing the age for Social Security retirement benefits eligibility for today’s younger workers and limiting the benefits of wealthier Americans.
The Biden administration has sought to contrast the president’s support of Social Security and Medicare with Republicans’ proposals to address shortfalls in the programs’ finances. In his State of the Union address last week, Biden said he would stop anyone who tries to cut the programs or raise the retirement age.
Trump has been more open to cutting Medicaid enrollment and reducing federal funding for the program, which provides health coverage to low-income Americans. His administration approved requests from several states to require certain enrollees to work, which resulted in thousands of people losing coverage in Arkansas.
Trump Weighs in on TikTok
Also in the Monday interview with CNBC, Trump said it was a “tough decision” on whether the US should ban TikTok and argued getting rid of the app would benefit Facebook. “The thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people along with a lot of the media,” Trump said.
His comments come days after a House committee unanimously advanced a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban against TikTok on all electronic devices. The measure, which was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would prohibit TikTok from US app stores unless the social media platform is quickly spun off from its China-linked parent company, ByteDance.
‘Tariffs are Tremendously Powerful’
Trump also said in the Monday interview that imposing tariffs “gives you power in dealing with other countries,” and said, “I’m a big believer in tariffs.” “Tariffs are tremendously powerful in terms of stopping wars because they don’t want tariffs. And frankly, I can, I made them sing, I made other countries sing with the threat of tariffs. And if you don’t have tariffs, we have nothing whatsoever on them,” Trump said.
Trump said last month he would consider imposing a tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports if he regains the presidency. As president, Trump imposed tariffs of 25% on $50 billion of Chinese goods in June 2018. Beijing countered with its own tariffs, and the spiral continued until the two countries arrived at an agreement in 2020. The Biden administration has largely kept the Trump-era tariffs in place.