Social Security has been called the third rail of American politics: Touch it and you die. And if that is indeed the case, then Donald Trump might want to start picking out a nice casket.
Bloomberg is reporting that when Trump met with Paul Ryan before the 2016 election, he told the former House Speaker that he does indeed favor cutting Social Security. Bloomberg cites an unnamed source who was in the room when the meeting was held.
According to the source, Trump told Ryan:
“From a moral standpoint, I believe in it. But you also have to get elected. And there’s no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying, ‘We’re going to cut your Social Security’ and the Democrat is saying, ‘We’re going to keep it and give you more.’ ”
This is in stark contrast to what Trump has repeatedly said on the campaign trail. Trump has said time and time again that he would leave Social Security alone.
Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, believes the real intent of Trump is the same as that of most Republicans: Drastically cutting benefits while pretending to support the program:
“It is really clear: Donald Trump would 100 percent go along with the Republican donor class position of cutting Social Security. He openly says he will lie to the people about it because he knows that the people are against it.
“In his eyes the ‘moral’ thing to do is to steal people’s hard-earned benefits and not talk about it.”
As we have seen repeatedly, Trump lies about everything, reverses his positions on issues by the hour, and often seems to be utterly lost when asked for specifics about various policy questions. The man is a complete idiot. He’s also a danger to the very essence of American democracy.