Biden campaign takes aim at Trump stance on Social Security, Medicare in new advertisement

The reelection campaign of President Joe Biden on Monday released a new digital advertisement targeting Donald Trump over comments the former president made to CNBC about cutting government programs including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The Biden campaign gave CNBC a first look at the new 20-second ad highlighting the statement on “Squawk Box” by Trump, who as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is expected to face Biden in November’s election.

The ad will be published on Biden’s X, Facebook, Instagram and Threads social media accounts, the campaign said.

In the interview on Monday, CNBC host Joe Kernen asked Trump if he had changed his “outlook on how to handle entitlements: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?”

Kernen’s question was based on a concern that those programs, if not cut, will continue to fuel increases in the U.S. national debt.

Trump answered: “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.”

The Biden campaign, highlighting that response, closes with footage from the president’s State of the Union speech on Thursday when he said, “If anyone here tries to cut Social Security, Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will stop you.”

The ad was part of a series of responses by Biden and his campaign to Trump’s interview, which they then seized on an opportunity to attack the Republican for suggesting cuts to programs that benefit more than 150 million Americans, many of them older voters.

Biden’s campaign first tweeted out footage from the Trump interview and Biden’s official X account, then responded with a report that said, “Not on my watch.”

Biden during a campaign event later Monday in New Hampshire said, “Even this morning, Donald Trump said cuts to Social Security and Medicare are on the table again.”

“The bottom line is he’s still at it,” Biden said. “I’ll never allow that to happen. I won’t cut Social security. I won’t cut Medicare.”

White House spokesman Andrew Bates put out a separate statement highlighting the president’s promise to protect the program.

Trump’s team, meanwhile, spent Monday trying to explain his comments on “Squawk Box.”

“If you losers didn’t cut his answer short, you would know President Trump was talking about cutting waste,” the Trump campaign said in a tweet responding to the Biden campaign’s post featuring video of the former president.