The debate over what to do about the debt limit is causing a rift within the GOP, one which former President Donald Trump believes he can use to his advantage with older voters and blunt the rise of burgeoning 2024 rival Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
DeSantis consistently polls as Trump’s top competition in the 2024 Republican primary, though the second-term governor has yet to announce a White House bid. The former president is re-upping his 2016 calls to protect Social Security and Medicare, a position that runs contrary to the long-held conservative goal of reforming federal entitlement programs, as a means of attacking DeSantis, Trump advisers say.
TRUMP EXTENDS ENTITLEMENTS OLIVE BRANCH TO BIDEN IN DEBT CEILING FIGHT
In late January, Trump released a video threatening Republican lawmakers not to touch the decades-old entitlements packages in their quest to exact debt limit concessions from President Joe Biden and Democrats, urging the GOP instead to target “left-wing gender programs from our military,” foreign aid, and “billions being spent on climate extremism.”
“Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security,” Trump said in the video. “Cut waste, fraud, and abuse everywhere that we can find it, and there is plenty of it. … But do not cut the benefits our seniors worked for and paid for their entire lives. Save Social Security. Don’t destroy it.”
DeSantis, on the other hand, has not publicly commented on the debt proceedings. Republican operatives aligned with Trump’s 2024 reelection effort suggest that has to do with his own track record of voting to cut funding for Social Security and Medicare.
DeSantis, then a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, voted in 2013, 2014, and 2015 on three non-binding resolutions that called for raising the retirement age to 70 and reducing benefits for millions of earners.
The votes earned him a 0% rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans at the time and prompted interest groups, including the American Federation of Teachers, to run attack ads on DeSantis’s entitlements positions throughout his 2022 reelection campaign.
Ron DeSantis voted to cut Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age to 70, and privatize Medicare.
RT to spread his shame!#HandsOffSocialSecurity #FLGov @aftunion pic.twitter.com/2PAqEU8lQO
— Social Security Works (@SSWorks) October 21, 2022
One Florida-based veteran GOP campaign operative told the Washington Examiner that going after DeSantis on entitlements is a “can’t lose” strategy for Trump.
“This is the perfect storm for Trump to re-stake his claim on the I-4 corridor and senior citizens,” the operative explained. “It allows him to frame himself yet again as someone who’s not afraid to buck the party line, even though he’s a former president and by far the loudest Republican in the room.”
Trump and Republicans, sparked in large part by the former president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, have slowly bled support from senior citizens over the past two years. A CNN poll conducted during the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections showed just 47% of voters over 65 supporting Republicans, down nearly 20 points from a CNN poll conducted during the spring. Meanwhile, senior citizen support for Biden heading into the 2020 general election set the highest level for Democrats in the past six presidential cycles, a 20-30 point improvement over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Representatives for DeSantis did not respond to inquiries on the subject.
Democrats counter that, despite Trump’s past and present campaign promises, all Republican economic policies will adversely affect lower-income Americans.
White House officials note that Democratic lawmakers voted to raise the debt limit three times during Trump’s time in office without threatening the country with default. Furthermore, the White House claims the Republican plan will make inflation worse while further cutting taxes for wealthy families.
“During the Trump Administration, House Republicans constantly voted to suspend the debt ceiling while at the same time increasing the deficit with tax giveaways for wealthy special interests,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement. “Now, as they vote for even more tax welfare for the rich, Republicans across the House Conference are demanding cuts to Medicare and Social Security as ransom for not triggering an economic crisis.”
“Speaker McCarthy claimed he opposed this but then immediately winked his approval for Medicare and Social Security cuts all the same, under the guise of “strengthening” the programs. Is that their only plan? We have yet to see another,” he continued. “President Biden has been clear that avoiding default without a ransom payment is non-negotiable, and is working to invest in forgotten communities while even further reducing the deficit by having the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.”
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Democratic National Committee spokesperson Rhyan Lake further noted to the Washington Examiner that Trump’s budget proposal for fiscal 2020 drastically decreased spending for both programs by roughly $1 trillion over the next decade.
“Donald Trump’s own record speaks for itself,” Lake said. “Americans overwhelmingly rejected the MAGA agenda of gutting Social Security, Medicare, and affordable healthcare in 2018, 2020, and 2022, and will do so again.”
