Kamala Harris repeats dubious claim that Donald Trump would cut Social Security

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

66% : For this fact-check, we will focus on Trump's plans for Social Security.
59% : Unless changes are made, such as increasing the retirement age or paring benefit levels, the trust fund that supports Social Security is poised to run out in the 2030s.
53% : "But this is the exception to the rule for Trump during this campaign cycle, and he immediately walked back his CNBC comments.
53% : Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign's national press secretary, told PolitiFact in June that he "will continue to strongly protect Social Security and Medicare in his second term.
48% : During his yearslong tenure in the public eye, Trump has provided his critics with a rich vein of statements expressing openness to cutting Social Security.
48% : The key threat to the long-term viability of Social Security, the universal income support program for older Americans, is a shortage of workers feeding their tax dollars into the system, plus a growing number of retirement-age Americans qualifying to receive benefits.
47% : "Save Social Security.
46% : Before the 2024 campaign, Trump flirted with support for Social Security cuts.
46% : Most recently, in a March CNBC interview, Trump said of entitlement programs such as Social Security, "There's a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.
45% : "We can also raise the age for receipt of full Social Security benefits to 70."The Harris campaign also noted that as president, Trump submitted budget proposals that included cuts to Social Security.
43% : And before he became president, Trump periodically opined that Social Security needed to be cut or privatized, including in a 2012 interview with CNBC, a 2004 appearance on MSNBC and a 2000 book, "The America We Deserve," in which he called Social Security "a huge Ponzi scheme" and said he'd consider privatization.
41% : His campaign website says that not "a single penny" should be cut from Social Security, and he's repeated similar lines in campaign rallies.
40% : "DO NOT CUT the benefits our seniors worked for and paid for their entire lives," Trump said.
39% : We'll cover Harris' claim about Medicare in another fact-check.
35% : However, cutting Social Security has long been the "third rail of politics" -- touch it and you die politically -- so even making smaller cuts to avoid bigger ones down the road has been controversial.
32% : Biden and Harris both cited a March 11 remark by Trump on CNBC that, with regard to entitlement programs such as Social Security, "there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.
28% : "The rest of Trump's 2024 campaign rhetoric is more aligned with his comment to Breitbart -- that he does not intend to cut Social Security -- than the CNBC statement about being open to cuts.
27% : "Trump has repeatedly said he would not cut Social Security at campaign rallies in Michigan and Georgia and in multiple posts on his Truth Social platform.
23% : That's why both Biden and Trump pledged in their 2024 campaigns not to cut the program.
22% : "Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare," Harris said.
20% : More than a year before the CNBC appearance, Trump posted a video to his campaign website in which he says not "a single penny" should be cut from Social Security.
19% : The Harris campaign's decision to frame Trump's record as cuts to Social Security might leave people assuming that Trump sought to cut old-age and survivor benefits, though he didn't.
17% : In the 2024 presidential campaign, Democrats have repeatedly targeted former President Donald Trump as a threat to Social Security.
17% : In an interview with the conservative outlet Breitbart News, Trump said he would "never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt" Social Security.
17% : "Harris said, "Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security."Before the 2024 campaign, Trump said about a half dozen times that he's open to major Social Security overhauls, including cuts and privatization.
15% : "However, Trump quickly walked that statement back, and the CNBC comment stands at odds with essentially everything else Trump has said during the current presidential campaign.
11% : But the Harris campaign ignores most of what Trump has said during the 2024 campaign -- namely, that he will not cut Social Security and Medicare.

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