01/23/2020 03:01 pm ET Updated 6 days ago
Bernie Sanders Has Been Planning A Social Security Fight With Donald Trump For Years
This week, the president finally gave it to him.
Asked by “Squawk Box” host Joe Kernen whether “entitlements” ― a Washington term for universal social insurance programs ― would ever be “on his plate,” Trump responded that they would.
“At some point they will be,” Trump said in the interview from Davos, Switzerland. “At the right time, we will take a look at that.”
It’s unclear if Trump even knew of exactly what he was speaking.
[... including headline text] After HuffPost’s story went live Thursday afternoon, Trump defended his record further on Twitter. “Democrats are going to destroy your Social Security,” he wrote. “I have totally left it alone, as promised, and will save it!”
Sanders shot back in a quote-tweeted message with a screenshot of an article documenting how Trump’s budget resolutions have sought to cut the program. “More lies,” Sanders wrote.
The timing of Trump’s comments to CNBC could not have come at a more opportune moment for Sanders, who is litigating a pitched battle with former Vice President Joe Biden, with whom he is neck-and-neck in the presidential primary, over their respective records on Social Security.
[...] Sanders is correct to note that as a senator in the 1980s and ’90s, Biden endorsed and even cast votes for legislation that cut or would have cut Social Security benefits. He also served alongside former President Barack Obama, who sought a budget compromise deal ― or “grand bargain” ― with congressional Republicans that would have reduced Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment.
Sanders, by contrast, was an early opponent of those would-be deals and a proponent of expanding Social Security.
The Trump remarks provide Sanders the chance to further distinguish himself from Biden. Perhaps more importantly, they also give him the opportunity to execute on a carefully crafted plan to hold Trump accountable for his populist rhetoric.
Virtually since the moment Trump was elected, Sanders had been reminding Trump of his campaign trail promises not to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Sanders’ Senate office captured video of Trump mocking his fellow Republicans at an event in New Hampshire in May 2015 for embracing Social Security and Medicare cuts, and promising that he would be different.
He headlined a rally with Democratic leaders in Congress in December 2016 calling on Trump not to cut Medicare.
The following month, as it became clear that repealing the Affordable Care Act would be a Republican priority in Trump’s first months in office, Sanders printed out one of Trump’s tweets promising to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and used it as a prop on the Senate floor.
“If he was sincere, then I would hope that tomorrow or maybe today he could send out a tweet and tell his Republican colleagues to stop wasting their time and all of our time,” Sanders said, standing alongside a poster of the tweet.
Sanders subsequently condemned every one of Trump’s annual budget proposals for trying to restrict eligibility for Social Security’s Disability Insurance program. He consistently framed those budgets as betrayals of Trump’s campaign promises.
“Donald Trump promised the American people that he would be a different type of Republican, that he would be a champion of the working American and that he would not cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” Sanders said in a statement about Trump’s fiscal 2020 budget in March. “But his budget does the exact opposite of what he promised the American people.”
It’s all part of Sanders’ argument ― however oversimplistic ― that Trump won by appealing to the struggles of millions of working-class people, who either abandoned the Democratic Party in favor of him or stayed home.
As a candidate, Trump indeed combined racist rhetoric and hard-line immigration policies with promises to bring back manufacturing jobs through more equitable trade agreements, protect social insurance programs, ensure universal health care, and “drain” Washington of its swamp-like corruption.
There is more to the HuffPo item, the link is already given, and readers are urged to read it all. What we know from this is that Bernie not only sets his own record against Biden's, but also against Trump's; with Biden characterized as not protective of entitlements in the past (but changing his tune now); whereas if winning the endorsement, Bernie iotends to confront Trtump as an outright liar of unmatched gall and proportions. Trump lied his way into the White House and Bernie intends the truth to force Trump out.
With Biden's own compromised background, could he make the case as convincingly as Bernie? Unlikely. We shall see this play out soon, given primary season being around the corner.