Did Trump Say He Will Terminate Social Security If Re
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Trump has deferred about $100 billion in payroll tax payments through the end of the year. The payroll tax currently funds 90% of Social Security.
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Trump told reporters that if he wins re-election he wanted to terminate the programs primary funding source. He cant do that on his own.
A Facebook post has a dire warning about the future of Social Security under President Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump says he will terminate Social Security if re-elected,” states the Aug. 10 post by Social Security Works, a nonprofit group that supports expanding the federal program. “A vote for Trump is a vote to destroy our Social Security system.”
This post was flagged as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.
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Trump did use the word “terminate” when speaking about the payroll tax that funds Social Security, but his actual memo only pauses the tax for some employees for a few months. Trump hasnt said he would end Social Security payments, but he has made comments that many have interpreted as him wanting to eliminate the payroll tax entirely.
That means someone making the median weekly wage of about $1,000 would see an extra $62 in their paycheck. Trumps memo applies to people making up to $2,000 per week, so people who earn $104,000 a year or higher wouldnt get the tax break.
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Former Democrat Jeff Van Drew Explains Why He Switched To Gop
Meanwhile, scores of former Republican administration officials have endorsed Bidens campaign, including dozens of former George W. Bush staffers who announced their intent to back Biden this week.
Theres also a small group of former Trump administration officials who worked in the Department of Homeland Security who have chosen to back Biden.
But Van Drews speech provides Trump a lane to show the opposite effect of his presidency on some Democrats. Trump made a big show of Van Drew switching parties during the impeachment process and hosted him at the White House for a meeting.
Pelosi: Biden Shouldn’t Debate Trump ‘legitimize A Conversation With Him’
WASHINGTON House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that she doesnt think Joe Biden should debate President Donald Trump in the three scheduled this fall ahead of the election because she said Trump will probably act in a way that is beneath the dignity of the presidency.
Pelosi volunteered her opinion at a weekly news conference at the Capitol during which she also said that if Biden wins the White House and Democrats retain control of the House, they will have the ability to expose Trumps tax returns that he has refused for years to release.
Don’t tell anybody who told you this especially don’t tell Joe Biden I don’t think that there should be any debates, she said. I do not think that the president of the United States has comported himself in a way that anybody has any association with truth, evidence, data and facts. I wouldn’t legitimize a conversation with him, nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States.
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Giuliani Tells Nbc News He Will Attack Biden On Police Brutality Protests
Rudy Giuliani, who has served as Donald Trumps lawyer and a top confidant, in his speech Thursday night will attack Joe Biden over violence in U.S. cities over the summer.
Giulianis speech will fall in line with what has been the main theme of Trumps convention hammering Biden over protests against police brutality, some of which have led to violence or vandalism. Just this week, a pro-police sympathizer allegedly shot and killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin after a Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot seven times by police.
“Biden and his fellow Democrats were widely criticized for not speaking up about the out-of-control violence plaguing Democrat cities in our country,” Giuliani told NBC News in a text message. “You would expect they would feel obligated to suggest some policy changes. Yet they said nothing about the alarming growth of murder and riots and attempts to end policing.”
Their silence was so deafening that it reveals an acceptance of this violence because they will accept anything they hope will defeat President Donald Trump, he added.
Biden, who has criticized the violence, addressed the attacks on Thursday, telling MSNBC Trump “views this as a political benefit and that the president is “rooting for more violence, not less.”
The Claim: President Donald Trump Promised To ‘terminate’ Social Security If He Is Reelected
Recent posts from Social Security Works a nonprofit focused on expanding Social Security, improving Medicare and lowering the cost of prescription drugs claim that President Donald Trump will end Social Security if he is reelected.
“Donald Trump says he will ‘terminate’ Social Security if reelected,” a post on Monday reads. “A vote for Trump is a vote to destroy our social security system.”
“Millions of seniors and people with disabilities struggle to make ends meet,” another post from the same day reads. “Yet Donald Trump says he will ‘terminate’ Social Security if reelected. That’s a disastrous plan.”
The posts come after Trump signed a series of executive orders on Aug. 8 intended to provide relief from the detrimental economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Trump White House Claim The Tax Relief Will Not Impact Social Security
On Sunday, as he boarded Marine One, Trump told reporters that the executive order deferring payroll taxes for some Americans will “have zero impact on Social Security.”
“We protect Social Security,” he added, according to Fox News.
An official from the White House told USA TODAY on Tuesday that the Social Security Trust Fund is not at risk, since payment deferral is only temporary, and at present, must be paid back early in 2021. The official confirmed, though, that the president called on Congress to make the deferral permanent, thereby eliminating the tax.
Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy think tank, told USA TODAY that eliminating the tax is not the same as eliminating Social Security.
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“Strictly speaking, Social Security could be funded using general fund revenue or alternative revenue source, so terminating a tax and terminating a program are distinct things,” he wrote in an email.
“However, it would be reasonable to ask what would happen with the program absent an alternative plan to fund it,” Watson added.
On Wednesday, Trump suggested an alternate source for the first time the general fund of government revenues per Fox Business.
More:The top 3 unanswered questions about Trump’s executive orders on coronavirus relief
Pat Lynch: The Democrats Have Walked Away From Us
The Democrats have walked away from us. They have walked away from police officers and they’ve walked away from the innocent people we protect, Lynch said. Democratic politicians have surrendered our streets and our institutions. The loudest voices have taken control, and our so-called leaders are scrambling to catch up with them.
Its worth noting that, according to The New York Times, major crimes have not risen in NYC and the papers analysis of city data shows that the recent spike in shootings is largely because of the number of arrests for gun crimes has sharply decreased.
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Why The Fate Of Medicare And Social Security Is A Midterm Issue
The fate of Social Security and Medicare is back in the spotlight less than two weeks before the midterms.
The White House and Democrats have made both entitlements central to their closing pitch to voters, sounding the alarm that a Republican majority in the House would look to cut programs that millions of Americans rely on in a bid to reduce spending.
While some GOP lawmakers have not shied away from talk of altering those programs, many in the party have dismissed the Democratic attacks as a ploy designed to shift attention away from persistent inflation and broader concerns about the economy.
Democrats in recent days have zeroed in on a particularly bleak scenario: that a Republican-led House would hold the debt ceiling hostage, threatening a government default and economic crisis if the Biden administration does not agree to spending cuts.
put us in default unless we yield to their demands to cut Social Security and Medicare. Theyre so determined to cut Social Security and Medicare, theyre willing to take down the economy over it, Biden told supporters in Syracuse, N.Y., on Thursday. There is nothing, nothing that will create more chaos or do more damage to the American economy than that happening, if it were to happen.
A June poll from the left-leaning Data for Progress found large majorities wanted to strengthen Social Security, including 73 percent of independents and 73 percent of Republicans.
Emily Brooks contributed reporting.
Fact Check: Mcconnell Claims Dems Want To Defund Police Give Free Health To Undocumented Immigrants
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said during his RNC speech Thursday that Democrats want to defund the police and that they want free health care for illegal immigrants.
The first claim is misleading, and the second false. Though some progressives within the Democratic Party do support calls to “defund the police,” the official Democratic Party platform, approved last week, includes no reference to it. And, as NBC News has pointed out on the the first, second and third nights of the RNC, Joe Biden, the party’s nominee, does not support defunding the police. He has explicitly said so on multiple occasions.
NBC News has an explainer on the different and sometimes overlapping proposals from activists on how to address police violence here.
Additionally, while some on the left have called for free health care for undocumented immigrants, Biden has not. He supports allowing undocumented immigrants to purchase health care with their own money, they would not be eligible for taxpayer-funded subsidies. The official Democratic Party platform calls for extending Affordable Care Act coverage to Dreamers, and working with Congress to lift the five-year waiting period for Medicaid and Childrens Health Insurance Program eligibility for low-income, lawfully present immigrants.
McConnell also said Democrats want to make Washington, D.C., Americas 51st state.
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Fact Check: Trump Boasts Of Delivering Ppe Early In Pandemic Doesn’t Mention Ongoing Shortages
“We shipped hundreds of millions of masks, gloves and gowns to our frontline health care workers. To protect our nations seniors, we rushed supplies, testing kits, and personal to nursing homes, we gave everything you can possibly give and were still giving it because were taking care of our senior citizens,” Trump said on Thursday night, talking up his COVID-19 response.
In the early days of the pandemic, the Trump administration did indeed procure millions of supplies, even flying personal protective equipment in from overseas, with much fanfare and often exaggerated numbers.
But Trump fails to mention that the shortages of PPE and critical testing supplies are ongoing.
One in five U.S. nursing homes faced severe shortages of PPE this summer, according to a study released in August. The American Medical Association decried the persistent shortage of N95 masks and other protective equipment yesterday.
“It is hard to believe that our nation finds itself dealing with the same shortfalls in PPE witnessed during the first few weeks that SARS-CoV-2 began its unrelenting spread, the groups president, Dr. Susan Bailey, said on August 26th. But that same situation exists today, and in many ways things have only gotten worse.
Medicare And Social Security’s Finances Are Already Shaky
Economists from the left-leaning Center for American Progress warned on Thursday that Trump’s push to enact a payroll tax cut could further erode their shaky finances.
“Trump’s scheme would weaken the Social Security and Medicare trust funds by diverting the revenue from the employee portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes, and potentially the employer’s share of Medicare taxes, from the programs’ trust funds,” a memo from the organization said.
Around $500 billion in payroll taxes went into the trust funds of both programs from August to December of last year, the Center for American Progress said.
The trust funds for both programs are scheduled to be depleted in this decade. The Bipartisan Policy Center projects that if economic damage was similar to the Great Recession a decade ago, the Social Security trust funds could be depleted in 2029. That could prompt a 31% cut in retirement benefits, the organization said.
The Medicare trust fund is in worse shape. Its trustees said the program would run out of money in 2026 also without accounting for the pandemic.
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Watch Vice President Pence’s Full Speech At The 2020 Rnc
The third night of the RNC the traditional political pep rally that Trump is hoping will boost his flagging re-election campaign was held as the country faces turmoil.
A teenager was arrested Wednesday for fatally shooting protesters in Wisconsin demonstrating against the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. The NBA postponed playoff games in response to Blakes shooting. Texas and Louisiana braced for a catastrophic hurricane. Deadly wildfires continued to burn in Northern California. All while the coronavirus death toll rapidly nears 200,000.
First Read: Real World Chaos Undercuts Trump’s Convention Message
Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Carrie Dann and Melissa Holzberg
WASHINGTON For most of this year, the events of 2020 have overshadowed the actual presidential campaign. And its happening again as the Republican convention concludes and with 68 days until Election Day.
A powerful hurricane has slammed into the Louisiana-Texas Gulf Coast. The shooting of Jacob Blake by police has resulted in unrest, further violence and the arrest of a 17-year-old charged with murder during the protests. Also because of the Blake shooting, professional athletes from the NBA and WNBA, to Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer and tennis star Naomi Osaka walked off their respective courts and playing fields.
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Fact Check: Giuliani Wrong About ‘riots’ In ‘democrat’ Cities
Rudy Giuliani made several wrong, exaggerated or misleading claims about policing and law enforcement in the U.S. during his RNC speech Thursday.
Speaking about the protests sparked across the U.S. in response to the death of a Black man, George Floyd, under the knee of a White Minneapolis police officer, Giuliani said, Soon protests turned into riots in many other American cities, almost all Democrats.”
He blamed the violence on “Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA” who he said “sprang into action” and”hijacked peaceful protest into vicious brutal riots.”
He added that, in those riots, “people beaten, shot, and killed. Police officers routinely assaulted, badly beaten, and occasionally murdered.
This is all a substantial distortion and exaggeration of the facts.
According to multiplereports, including a Washington Post fact check, there were no signs that that antifa was behind violence at these protests. As of earlier this month, federal prosecutors had not been able to link dozens of people arrested in protests in Portland, Ore., to antifa.
In fact, in at least one instance where a police officer was killed during a protest, the suspect was actually aligned with a far-right extremist group. In Oakland, Air Force Staff Sgt. Steven Carrillo a member of the boogaloo, an online extremist group with violent views is accused of killing a federal officer. Authorities have said he was using nearby peaceful protests as cover.
How Alice Marie Johnson Became Of Symbol Of Trumps Criminal Justice Reform Agenda
Dartunorro Clark
Two years ago, reality star Kim Kardashian West personally lobbied the president in an Oval Office meeting to intervene on behalf of Alice Marie Johnson.
Johnsons story went viral after she did an interview from inside of an Alabama federal prison in which she was serving a life sentence without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense.
In that video, Johnson shared the details of her story.
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Fact Check: Trump Claims Biden Wants To ‘close All Charter Schools’ That’s False
“Biden also vowed to oppose school choice and close all charter schools, ripping away the ladder of opportunity for Black and Hispanic children,” Trump claimed on Tuesday night.
This is false. The Biden campaign does not oppose charter schools, though they’ve advocated against for-profit charter schools and supported different regulations and oversight of the schools.
And while “school choice” is a buzzy word, it can means different things to different people. Trump supports letting students take federal funds to private schools, something Joe Biden and many Democrats oppose, instead supporting allowing families to make choices within publicly-funded school districts.
Rnc Brags About Trump’s Record On Nyc’s Public Housing
The RNC featured a video focusing on the Trump administration’s funding for public housing with several people of color talking about the ways Mayor de Blasio has failed them and how the administration has stepped in to improve public housing projects.
One noteworthy thing here, following the convention’s theme of trying to appeal to Black voters, is the way that the feature used the interracial politics among Black and brown people. One woman proclaimed that “illegal immigrants” were being placed in public housing in front of Black Americans who had been on waiting lists for affordable housing for years.
However, according to the organization Justice for Immigrants, only refugees, victims of trafficking, and immigrants admitted for legal residence are eligible for public housing not undocumented immigrants. If anything, mixed-status housing is permitted, but it still requires at least one family member to be a citizen, or deemed an “eligible immigrant.”
Trump has also spoken throughout the summer about his tactics to remove low-income housing from suburbs, usually in tandem with his words blasting protests against racial injustice and inequality.
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