REVERSAL: Trump putting entitlement cuts back on the table

As you all remember, back in 2016 Trump said he would not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. But in a new interview with CNBC, Trump suggests he’s willing to look at them now, or at least at some point:

JOE KERNEN: Do I dare– one last question.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Go ahead.

JOE KERNEN: Entitlements ever be on your plate?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: At some point they will be. We have tremendous growth. We’re going to have tremendous growth. This next year I– it’ll be toward the end of the year. The growth is going to be incredible. And at the right time, we will take a look at that. You know, that’s actually the easiest of all things, if you look, cause it’s such a–

JOE KERNEN: If you’re willing–

PRESIDENT TRUMP: –big percentage.

JOE KERNEN: –to do some of the things that you said you wouldn’t do in the past, though, in terms of Medicare–

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we’re going– we’re going look. We also have– assets that we’ve never had. I mean we’ve never had growth like this. We never had a consumer that was taking in, through– different means, over $10,000 a family. We never had the kind of– the kind of things that we have. Look, our country is the hottest in the world. We have the hottest economy in the world. We have the best unemployment numbers we’ve ever had. African American, Asian American. Hispanics are doing so incredibly. Best they’ve ever done. Black. Best they’ve ever done. African American. The numbers are incredible. The poverty numbers. The unemployment and the employment. There’s– there is a difference, actually. But the unemployment and employment numbers for African Americans are the best we’ve ever had. You know, we just– came up with a chart, and it was a very important to number to me. African American youth has the highest, by far, unemployment. The best unemployment numbers that they’ve ever had. And the best employment numbers. Right now we have almost 160 million people working in the United States, and we’ve never even been close to that, Joe.

I’m glad Trump is willing to at least put them back on the table for his next four years, should he win. That was a big criticism of his from the right back in 2016.

Trump says it’s one of the easiest things to cut because it’s the biggest percentage. I like that he’s optimistic, but the truth is it won’t be easy to get the Congress to make any changes to entitlements. Heck, a Republican House and Senate couldn’t get rid of Obamacare after they won with a mandate to do so in 2017.

At this point I have low expectations that any entitlement cuts are coming in the future. We’d have to win back both chambers and there would have to be a very strong majority in the Senate to even get past the filibuster issues and the RINOs in our party. But I guess we’ll wait and see what 2020 brings…

Watch Trump’s full interview below:


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