Criminal trials are different from friendly Squawk Box interviews. Yesterday Asawin Suebsaweng and Adam Rawnsley reported that several lawyers and political advisors are urging Trump to keep his trap shut during his trial and not testify on his own behalf, at lest in the upcoming Stormy Daniels hush money trial this month. It’s hard to persuade him to zip it up though. His advisors and lawyers fear Trump on the witness stand “would create unnecessary drama and allow prosecutors to lay potential perjury traps for him. Some have also directly counseled Trump to— given the gravity of a criminal trial— refrain from courtroom theatrics and indignant outbursts that defined some of his other court appearances, such as his recent disastrous New York civil fraud trial. This has included urging Trump to remain quiet in court, even— and perhaps especially— if his political enemies, such as Cohen or Daniels, are present and taking the stand… [Trump] is notorious for rebelling against attempts to contain him that he feels are condescending… [S]ome recent efforts to softly beg Trump to not be, well, himself were met with a cold reception from the client.”
Presumably, on the other hand, the theory inside the Trump campaign is that it doesn’t matter much what he babbles incoherently to the media as long as he doesn’t contradict the MAGA ethos too clearly or too often, the way he did by taking a victory lap over Operation Warp Speed, a complete no-no with the anti-vax neanderthals that are a ginormous part of his coalition of the proudly deplorable.
So how big a deal was his threat, when asked by CNBC, to cut “entitlement sending?” That’s Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, a bugaboo among old line conservative Republicans but not at all a bugaboo among teh MAGA masses. Señor T: “So, first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting 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. So I don’t necessarily agree with the statement. I know that they’re going to end up weakening Social Security, because the country is weak. I mean, take a look at outside of the stock market— we’re going through hell. People are going through hell. They have— I believe that number is 50 percent. They say 32 and 33 percent. I believe we have a cumulative inflation of over 50 percent. That means people are, you know, they have to make more than 50 percent more over a fairly short period of time to stay up. They’ve gotten routed. The middle class in our country has been routed. And the middle class largely built our country. And they’ve been treated very, very badly with policy.” You can watch it here.
Dan Pfeiffer noted that “On issues that Trump is naive about— which includes everything other than what was said on Fox News in the previous hour— Donald Trump tends to vomit up incomprehensible word salad. When Trump says something this politically unwise, many of his apologists in the media portray comments more as a misstatement than a policy pronouncement. But that is very wrong. In 2016, Trump repeatedly pledged to protect Medicare and Social Security, but then included budget cuts to Social Security and Medicare every year of his presidency... The politics of Trump opening the door to Social Security could not be more critical. The primary reason for Trump’s slight lead over Biden in the polling average is that he has made gains with a core part of the Democratic base— working class voters of color.”
Reams of polling show that preventing cuts to Social Security and Medicare is a top priority for all voters, especially working-class voters. In a recent Blueprint poll, a majority of working-class voters and 46% of non-college-educated, non-white voters expressed concern that “Trump would cut funding for Social Security and Medicare.
Pressing Trump on his plans to cut Social Security and Medicare is a way to go on the offense with the voters who will decide the election.
The Biden campaign has been aggressive in pushing Trump’s comments, but as always, they need our help. Here are some thoughts on how to assist them:
Spread the Word: We have to spread the word. Most voters don’t watch CNBC (Thank God!) and are not following the back and forth on the campaign trail. Because Trump has underserved populist bona fides, many voters give him the benefit of the doubt. They believe he will protect Social Security and Medicare more than other Republicans. Therefore, step one is informing voters. Some things to share include:
This compilation of Trump’s comments calling for cuts to Social Security;
This video from the Biden campaign comparing the candidates’ positions on Social Security; and
This new ad from the Biden Campaign.
Put the Cuts in Context: In the Blueprint poll, the only thing that concerned voters more than Trump cutting Social Security was his plan to cut taxes for the rich. When he was in the White House, Trump passed a massive tax cut that primarily benefited corporations and the wealthy and added trillions to the deficit. Those tax cuts expire at the end of 2025 and Trump wants to renew and expand them. Trump isn’t trying to save Social Security; he wants to cut it to pay for more tax cuts for corporations and the very wealthy.
Another Example of MAGA Extremism: Republican extremism spans a wide range of issues which makes the idea that they’ll cut Social Security more believable. Based on some excellent work from Bryan Bennet of Navigator Research, I have taken their recommended messaging and edited it to include Trump. While MAGA Republicans are focused on taking away abortion access and cutting Social Security and Medicare, Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress are focused on protecting Social Security and Medicare and bringing down the cost of your insulin– which is why they passed legislation that allows Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs.
There’s no question that the general election battle between Trump and Biden kicked off with the President’s fiery State of the Union address. And Trump just made the first big mistake of the race.
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