As Americans celebrate the 59th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid today, Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their MAGA allies threaten to gut these crucial programs. In response, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement: 

“Donald Trump, JD Vance, and their extreme MAGA allies’ plans for Medicare and Medicaid are best described by Trump’s own words: ‘Oh, we’ll be cutting.’ Vance himself said programs like Medicare are one of the ‘biggest roadblocks’ to ‘fiscal sanity.’ These programs are lifelines for millions of Americans, but the Trump-Vance ticket and their extreme allies threaten to cut funding — just like Trump proposed every year of his presidency — and undo the Biden-Harris administration’s work to lower prescription drug costs for seniors. Trump and Vance’s Project 2025 agenda to leave our seniors high and dry is destructive, extreme, and deeply unpopular — which the American people will make clear when they reject it in November.”

Donald Trump has floated cuts to crucial programs like Medicare and Medicaid after years of railing against and threatening them.

Joe Kernen, CNBC: “Have you changed your outlook on how to handle entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid?”

Trump: “So first of all, there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting.”

Forbes: “Trump Floats ‘Cutting’ Spending On Entitlements Like Social Security And Medicare”

Rolling Stone: “Trump Floats Cuts to Social Security and Medicare”

CNN: “Trump now says he’s open to entitlement cuts, including Medicare”

Mediaite: “During a Fox News town hall, President Donald Trump promised to cut entitlements like Medicare and Social Security if he were to win a second term. … ‘But if you don’t cut something in entitlements, you will never really deal with the debt,’ town hall co-moderator Martha MacCallum interjected, alluding to social safety programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. ‘Oh, we’ll be cutting,’ Trump rushed to confirm.”

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “President Trump has made clear that his goal remains to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including its expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults, and to impose rigid caps on the federal government’s Medicaid spending.”

Trump proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in every single one of his budgets as president, left children uninsured when he cracked down on Medicaid, and more.

Washington Post: “His avowed stance, however, is at odds with Trump’s own record as president: Each of his White House budget proposals included cuts to Social Security and Medicare programs.”

Vox: “Trump said he wouldn’t cut Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare. His 2020 budget cuts all 3.”

2019 and 2020: Trump proposed budgets that included hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare.

In his FY18, FY19, FY20, and FY21 budgets, Trump repeatedly proposed hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid.

ProPublica: “The Trump Administration Cracked Down on Medicaid. Kids Lost Insurance.”

Los Angeles Times: “Rebuffed by the courts in its previous efforts to gut Medicaid, the Trump administration teed up a new, far-reaching attack on the program that could affect the health of millions of low-income Americans.”

New York Times: “The Trump administration said on Thursday that it would allow states to cap Medicaid spending for many poor adults, a major shift long sought by conservatives that gives states the option of reducing health benefits for millions who gained coverage through the program under the Affordable Care Act.” 

CBS News: “Trump administration to withhold Medicaid funding from California over abortion insurance requirement”

JD Vance has railed against Medicare and other entitlement programs that Americans depend on.

Vance: “[Social Security and Medicare] are the biggest roadblocks to any kind of real fiscal sanity.”

Vance: “The way forward is as obvious as it is politically difficult: … reform current entitlements and avoid enacting new ones.”

Vance: “We’ve got to, frankly, stop spending so much on welfare benefits and start having a lot more workers who are paying into the system.”

Project 2025 — an “undeniably” Trump-driven operation — includes plans to accelerate efforts to privatize Medicare, cut Medicaid benefits, and repeal provisions in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that allow Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. 

Project 2025: “Add work requirements and match Medicaid benefits to beneficiary needs. Because Medicaid serves a broad and diverse group of individuals, it should be flexible enough to accommodate different designs for different groups.”

Project 2025: “This ‘negotiation’ program should be repealed, and reforms in Part D that will have meaningful impact for seniors should be pursued…

“In addition, intermediate tax reform should repeal all tax increases that were passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, including the book minimum tax, the stock buyback excise tax, the coal excise tax, the reinstated Superfund tax, and excise taxes on drug manufacturers to compel them to comply with Medicare price controls.”

Rolling Stone: “Republicans Are Planning to Totally Privatize Medicare — And Fast”

“Such a policy would hasten the end of the traditional Medicare program, as well as its foundational premise: that seniors can go to any doctor or provider they choose. The change would be a boon for private health insurers — which generate massive profits and growing portions of their revenues from Medicare Advantage plans — and further consolidate corporate control over the United States health care system.

“It would not likely benefit seniors, since the private plans limit the doctors they can see and often wrongfully deny patients’ care. Because the plans are costly, experts say the GOP proposal could threaten the Medicare program’s solvency.”

Axios: “This is undeniably a Trump-driven operation. The biggest tell: Johnny McEntee — one of Trump’s closest White House aides, and his most fervent internal loyalty enforcer — is a senior adviser to Project 2025. One of the most powerful architects is Stephen Miller, a top West Wing adviser for the Trump administration.”

The Week: “Many of Trump’s indicated plans for a second term fall in line with the Project 2025 outline.”

New York Times: “Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’ This includes leading Project 2025, a transition blueprint that outlines a plan to consolidate power in the executive branch, dismantle federal agencies and recruit and vet government employees to free the next Republican president from a system that Roberts views as stacked against conservative power. The lesson of Trump’s first year in office, Roberts told me, is that ‘the Trump administration … simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.’”