Donald Trump has accused the Democrats of "killing" Social Security and Medicare by allowing an "invasion" of migrants into the country.
The former president took aim at President Joe Biden's administration in a post on Truth Social and promised to leave the social and medical insurance programs alone.
In recent weeks, the former president has spoken about Social Security on multiple occasions, particularly in reference to the ongoing migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. In December 2023, U.S. Border Patrol registered 249,735 migrant encounters, the highest monthly total on record.
Trump said in a video post on Wednesday: "Unlike the Democrats who are killing Social Security and Medicare by allowing the invasion of migrants into our country—it's an absolute, like a military invasion—I will not, under any circumstances, allow either of these two precious gems to be even touched under a Trump administration."
"You will always have your Social Security in full as you have it now, and you will always have your Medicare. Biden cannot say that, because Biden is killing them both with the invasion of migrants and while at the same time destroying our country in every other way," he said.
It is not the first time Trump has suggested Biden's immigration policies would impact Social Security. Speaking at a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, earlier this month, the former president spoke about Biden's record on the southern border. "One of the most important issues in this race is how Biden's border invasion is going to obliterate Medicare and Social Security for American seniors," he told his supporters.
Posting a clip of his speech to Truth Social, his campaign team said: "Biden's border invasion is going to OBLITERATE Medicare and Social Security for American seniors. If the millions of Biden migrants are allowed to stay as Joe Biden intends, they will cost taxpayers TRILLIONS of dollars, and Medicare and Social Security will buckle and collapse!"
Newsweek has contacted the presidential campaign teams of Trump and Biden for comment via email outside of normal working hours.
In previous comments relating to Social Security, Trump initially appeared to imply that he would cut Social Security and Medicaid.
"So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting," Trump said on the subject of Social Security and Medicaid during a call-in to CNBC's Squawk Box program on March 11. "And in terms of, also, the theft and the bad management of entitlements—tremendous bad management of entitlements—there's tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do."
Trump later clarified to the conservative news website Breitbart: "I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare."
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Aliss Higham is a Newsweek reporter based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her focus is reporting on issues across the U.S., including ... Read more
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