A pro-Trump super PAC is hitting television screens to attack Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R-Fla) history of advocating for cuts to Social Security and Medicare and raising the retirement age.
The 30-second advertisement begins by telling the viewer DeSantis is not ready to become the president, despite the governor not making an official run for the 2024 White House.
"The more you see about DeSantis, the more you see he doesn't share our values. He's not ready to be president," the MAGA Inc. ad said.
"Think you know Ron DeSantis?" A narrator from MAGA Inc., the ad said. "Think again. In Congress, DeSantis voted three separate times to cut Social Security. Worse? DeSantis voted to cut medicare two times," despite Trump himself wanting to cut entitlements and raise the retirement age, per his 2020 budget and words from his 2000 book.
Over the next 10 years, the former president planned to spend $1.5 trillion less on Medicaid, instead allocating $1.2 trillion in a block-grant program to states, and $25 billion less on Social Security, and $845 billion less on Medicare.
In his 2000 book, Trump called for the retirement age to raised to 70 saying "a firm limit at age seventy makes sense for people now under forty. We're living longer. We're working longer. New medicines are extending healthy human life."
According to AdImpact data, MAGA Inc. spent more than $1.3 million for one week's worth of airtime, which will air on networks such as Fox News, Newsmax, and CNN.
The ad took repeated stabs at DeSantis for voting for three non-binding resolutions between 2013 and 2015 that advocated raising the retirement age to 70 years old and reducing benefits for millions of earners.
However, DeSantis sang a different tune, promising not to "mess with Social Security as Republicans."
"President Trump is on the side of the American people when it comes to Social Security and Medicare—Ron DeSantis sides with DC establishment insiders. We are going to expose the key differences between President Trump and Ron DeSantis that illustrate just how unelectable DeSantis is," Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement to NBC News.
On the contrary, Trump had called on Republicans not to "cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security" when the party met with President Joe Biden to discuss raising the debt ceiling.
"Cut waste, fraud, and abuse everywhere that we can find, and there is plenty of it. But do not cut the benefits our seniors worked for and paid for their entire lives. Save Social Security. Don't destroy it," Trump said at the time.
Additionally, Trump attempted to attack DeSantis by tying him to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) over entitlements. However, Trump previously supported the former House speaker. Trump also signed into law trillions of dollars in Ryan-backed spending packages that increased the U.S. debt, putting more strain on the entitlement system, which DeSantis voted against.
President Trump is on the side of the American people when it comes to Social Security and Medicare. Ron DeSantis sides with DC establishment insiders. We are going to expose the key differences between President Trump and Ron DeSantis that illustrate just how unelectable… pic.twitter.com/EQYoSgX6yH
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) March 30, 2023
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