On Friday, former president Donald Trump delivered a warning to Republican lawmakers in the debt ceiling debate with the White House: Don’t mention entitlement programmes.
Trump stated in a video message that Republicans “should under no circumstances vote to remove a single dime from Medicare or Social Security.”
The two-minute video is a part of a series of policy statements released by his campaign, and it criticises President Joe Biden for the migratory situation at the southern border. And it occurs amid escalating brinkmanship over raising the country’s debt ceiling between congressional Republicans and the White House.
Republicans have promised to refrain from increasing the federal government’s borrowing capacity unless Biden makes significant cutbacks to federal expenditure, which could have an impact on social insurance programmes like Social Security and Medicare. Trump’s video serves as a cautionary tale to his fellow party members. As a substitute, he recommends focusing on foreign aid, restricting immigration, abolishing “left wing gender programmes from our military,” and cutting back on “billions being spent on climate fanaticism.”
Trump said, “Cut waste, fraud, and abuse everywhere we can find it because there is plenty of it.” “However, do not reduce the advantages that our senior citizens paid for with their life savings. Don’t destroy Social Security; save it.
Before it was made public, the video message was given to HEADLINESFOREVER.
Trump’s stance is consistent with his long-held, albeit unconventional, belief that the Republican Party should avoid being involved in entitlement reform. Paul Ryan, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, was heavily criticised by Trump before he was elected president for promoting austerity budgets during the Obama administration. He vowed to protect Social Security and Medicare while running for president. Even though he subtly suggested he may in a second term, there was never any serious talk of doing so while he was in office.
Trump, though, backs his fellow Republicans into a political box by making this comment now. Although party leadership has not completely embraced this demand, a few of them have openly discussed utilising the impending debt ceiling conflict to seek reductions in non-discretionary spending.
Trump has pushed in recent months that congressional Republicans use the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to advance legislative goals, despite never doing so when the debt ceiling was raised while he was president. But it’s evident from his statement that he sees some activities as forbidden. And it aligns him, at least in part, with Biden, who has not only said he won’t slash Social Security or Medicare but has also chastised Republicans for claiming they would.
The declaration is one of several policy-specific videos that Trump has published since formally launched his third presidential campaign. And it indicates that the former president wants to increase his influence on the present political scene in response to weeks of criticism that his campaign got off to a slow start.
Next Saturday, Trump is scheduled to travel to South Carolina to make campaign hire-related announcements in a gathering his advisers have billed as less of a rally and more of a “intimate” get-together. Trump hasn’t held any rallies since announcing his third candidature for president and has stayed put at his South Florida properties.
The ex-president will soon start making more public appearances, including a speech at the forthcoming CPAC conference outside Washington, D.C., according to Trump’s team, who has claimed they are working behind the scenes from the campaign headquarters in West Palm Beach.
Additionally, Facebook has been requested by Trump’s team to reinstate him after he was booted from the site following the uprising he assisted in stoking on January 6. According to aides, the social media site has been crucial for fundraising and voter outreach. This month, Meta will decide whether to lift Trump’s suspension.