Ron DeSantis, think again,
in Congress DeSantis voted three separate times to cut social security.
That's right, three times over three years.
>> Ron DeSantis has not announced that he plans to run for president in 2024.
But that didn't stop Donald Trump from releasing his first campaign ad
against DeSantis.
And I have to be honest with you, it's a pretty good one.
Why is it a good one?
Well, clearly Trump has gone back to his greatest hits, economic populism.
Does he actually mean it, probably not,
clearly the only thing he seemed to care about in his first term was tax cuts for
the rich to the tune of $2 trillion over one decade and deregulation.
So is he really an economic populist?
No, but it doesn't mean that he's not smart for going after Ron DeSantis for
wanting to cut wildly popular social spending programs like Medicare and
Social Security.
Here's the entire ad in its entirety.
>> You know, Ron DeSantis, think again in Congress,
DeSantis voted three separate times to cut social security.
That's right, three times over three years,
worse, DeSantis voted to cut Medicare two times.
DeSantis even voted to raise the retirement age to 70.
The more you learn about DeSantis, the more you see, he doesn't share our values.
He's just not ready to be President.
>> Emma, I am so curious to hear your thoughts on that ad because I just,
I personally think it was smart to go after DeSantis for
his willingness to cut Medicare and Social Security.
What are your thoughts?
>> I love it obviously for many reasons.
One, because I at this point want Trump to win the primary for
the sake of essentially the Democrats having the easiest path.
Now again, there's no way to know, right?
But with him facing multiple investigations being indicted, I have
a feeling that he's not winning over a ton of swing or moderate voters with that.
But look, we've seen this movie before.
I understand it, but Biden's the incumbent if he runs again,
it is a tougher hill to climb for any of the Republicans challenging him regardless
of Biden's deficiencies in many ways.
But I love this because Trump is putting it out there.
I mean, he's saying plainly frankly what the Democrats are bad at saying.
He keeps returning to this metaphor often of the wheelchair going off the cliff,
pushing the wheelchair off the cliff, which is
a metaphor I believe that the Democrats used like 10 years ago or something.
And that is something that the Democrats should be deploying again and yet Trump
is the one doing it in the context of a personal beef that he has with DeSantis.
But DeSantis is position on this is much more emblematic
of the Republican Party than anything else.
There's nothing more foundational to the Republican Party outside of maybe bigotry
towards minority groups and to towards women.
Then the desire to cut social security and
Medicare when they say they wanna raise them in retirement age, that's a cut.
When they say they wanna privatize it, that's a cut.
When they say they wanna move it into discretionary spending, that's a cut.
They try all different avenues to do so.
And Ron DeSantis has been very much toeing the party line throughout his career on
that front, but they never say it.
They use those excuses that I mentioned.
They never say it plainly because they know how unpopular it is.
Trump is a crowd surfer.
He did this well and this is why he's returning to his roots because
he loves being a WWE style trash talker in the primary.
And that's actually the only time he's useful cuz he attacks other Republicans.
He's returning to his roots and he knows.
As a crowd surfer what is popular, especially among those voters and these
programs, even though these are Republican voters voting against their interests.
He understands that the programs are popular and
going after DeSantis on this front is quite helpful for him in the primary race.
And last thing I'll say before I kick it back to you Anna,
DeSantis going around to police unions and club for
growth fundraisers as Trump went to East Palestine and is doing PR stunts.
Putting aside the arrest today, this guy does not have it.
This is Trump understanding the base, DeSantis is not understanding.
And another way that he does not understand is that he still has not made
a decision.
He is sitting on the fence and leaving a vacuum for
Trump to just attack, attack, attack.
And the more that time goes on, the more Trump can build a narrative without
him fighting back on it cuz he's too afraid.
And that's what makes me think DeSantis actually might not just run
because this is getting out of hand,
he has allowed Trump to gain way too much ground on this front.
>> I totally agree with you.
I think there's a pretty good chance that DeSantis might just decide.
Maybe I sit this one out because he's certainly not
doing well in the polls compared to Trump and
Trump is, he is a bull in a China shop and
sometimes it works to his advantage like he is ruthless.
Anyone he sees as an as an opponent, he will go after and
he will go after viciously and that's how he's been toward Ron DeSantis,
as soon as Ron DeSantis experience a little bit of a rise in the polling.
Now he has now after Trump decided to actually go after him pretty explicitly,
he went down in the polling, but that is a point that I've been trying to make.
Although I don't know if I'm articulating it in a way that people are understanding
because I'm not a fan of Trump.
Clearly, I'm not a fan of his.
I don't want him to win the presidential election.
I think that would be a disaster.
However, you have to look at his strategies and analyze them objectively.
The guy understands marketing and he understands what voters want to hear.
He might not and I don't think he ever will carry out the policies he
claims he wants to carry out that his supporters seem to love.
He didn't drain the swamp.
In fact, he filled the swamp with more swamp monsters.
I mean, the dude took advantage of corruption as a private billionaire and
then he took advantage of corruption as a sitting president.
The guy is corrupt.
He loves the swamp.
He is a liar when he pretends to be some sort of economic populist,
I will give him credit for not trying to go after Social Security and
Medicare during his one term as president.
However, that's it.
And when it came to actions that he took as president,
what is the one thing that he accomplished Emma?
>> Yeah, well, I mean, he cut taxes for the wealthy.
>> Exactly.
>> Exact, and then they use that pretext to then try to cut Social Security and
Medicare.
There's no money, there's no money.
In the trust fund, there's no money.
They conflate the Social Security Trust Fund with Social Security,
which is self funding and the trust fund.
Yes, there does need to be some action on that backstop for the trust fund.
But the point is that it could very easily be funded and
more if we raise the cap on income, that is taxable for
these programs for payroll, it's around 140k now.
It has outpaced inflation and that's why we're seeing the depletion of it.
So the easy solution is to just raise the cap.
I would eliminate it altogether honestly, but
raise the cap a lot more and then no problem.
But Republicans don't wanna tell you that and
Trump doesn't actually care about the program.
He just doesn't wanna take the political hit,
which is why he won't propose something like that.
But I say this all the time because sometimes we'll have viewers right into
the majority report and say, let's focus more on kitchen table, economic issues.
Let's not get bogged down in the culture war, which I do hear to an extent, right?
But you also cannot leave a vacuum for the right to fill that because they will
fill it, when you leave a vacuum and you don't respond to hatred.
If you don't respond to bigotry, you allow the right to make gains and
just fill up that space and then it's too late.
And ironically, DeSantis is allowing Trump to do that to
him right now in terms of a presidential race.
>> I got to say Trump is definitely, I mean,
he sees DeSantis as a formidable opponent for sure.
And he, I mean, remember De Santis hasn't even announced yet and
he's shelling out money, Trump is cheap as hell.
But when it comes to winning elections,
he will shell out the cash according to ad impact politics MAGA Inc.
So that's the pack behind the ad, just placed reservations on national cable.
So far, we've seen 1.2 million placed.
Ads are set to begin airing tomorrow.
So this was posted on March 30, today is April 4.
The Trump backed pack placed 16.7 million during the 2022 cycle.
And a MAGA, Inc spokesperson, Alex Pfeiffer,
said in a statement that Social Security and Medicare were two examples
of issues on which President Trump is on the side of the American people,
and DeSantis is on the side of the DC establishment insiders.
And by the way, he's right about that.
So we fact check Trump and his cronies, all the time.
But on this issue, they are correct about Ron DeSantis stint in Congress and
what he wanted to champion, what he was supportive and not supportive of.
In 2013, for instance, with Republicans controlling the house,
DeSantis joined 103 Republicans on a failed resolution that called for
raising the age to qualify for Medicare and Social Security to 70,
according to a Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget analysis.
The measure also supported a transition of Medicare,
a program funded by the federal government to a premium support system for
which the federal government would designate a pot of money for
each beneficiary to spend on a private insurance plan.
That's a very long way of saying he's supportive Ron DeSantis is of
privatizing Medicare.
So not a popular position,
Trump is right to attack Ron DeSantis on that for political gain.
I think that it's gonna work out well for him if he continues on this
track of tapping into his so-called roots in campaigning.
Final word- >> Yeah, and the point and
the point is just not to trust Trump on it though because it's not just about
individual people.
Trump sees this as just a way to attack DeSantis.
He doesn't have a principle on it.
And it's about the coalitions that these candidates build.
I try to say this all the time.
It's not just about the individual personality, it's about which union is
backing this candidate, which organization is backing this candidate.
What are their bases of power?
And so Trump could flip on this in a second.
But for now, it's incredibly politically useful to tie Republicans to trying
to cut Social Security and Medicare.
And I hope Trump does more of it.
This is the only time that I enjoy Trump,
Republican primary Trump where he's taking down other Republicans because
the Republican party is a malevolent malignant force in society.
And it deserves to be getting all the heat that it gets even if it's coming from
an internal record like Trump.
>> I do like it when Trump talks about windmills and water.
It's always fun.
>> You put the light inside the body, >> Windmills, meals.
>> Windmills