The former president’s remarks on Social Security open up a familiar and effective line of attack for Democrats.
After watching Republicans fight losing battles over entitlement reform — in 2008, for example, Barack Obama’s campaign outspent John McCain on the issue by a factor of 150 to 1 — Trump decided to avoid the political turkey shoot entirely.
“I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid,” Trump said in Iowa in 2015.
But now, thanks to an unforced error, Trump has effectively opened the 2024 general election campaign with a return to the third rail he sought to abandon almost a decade ago. Asked in a CNBC interview Monday whether he’d changed his outlook on how to handle entitlements, Trump argued in a word salad-heavy answer that “there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and also the theft and the bad management of entitlements.”
But this time, his campaign immediately recognized he had stepped on a land mine. A campaign spokesperson tried some cleanup on Monday, arguing that Trump will “continue to strongly protect Social Security and Medicare in his second term.
By then, though, it was too late. Trump suddenly found himself on the defensive, in the position so many prior GOP nominees have been in. He had given up the tactical advantage he had used to swamp his GOP rivals in the 2016 primary, back when he recognized that, when it came to entitlement reform, the only winning move is not to play.