Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has called on his rich "friends" to forego collecting Social Security, saying of himself, "I don't need mine, by the way."
"I have friends that are worth hundreds of millions and billions of dollars and get Social Security. They don’t even know the check comes in," Trump declared at the No Labels convention in New Hampshire Monday,
the Wall Street Journal reports.
In an appearance on the CBS news program
"60 Minutes" that aired on Sept. 27, Trump was asked whether he stood by the proposal he made in his 2000 book
"The America We Deserve" to raise the retirement age to 70.
"Not anymore," he replied, "because now what I want to do is take money back from other countries that are killing us and I want to save Social Security. And we're going to save it without increases. We're not going to raise the age and it will be just fine."
The response reiterated Trump's plan to ensure Social Security remains solvent by rebuilding the economy.
In an April 20 appearance on "Fox & Friends," the billionaire real estate developer said cutting the program won't be necessary in a thriving American economy.
"If you look at China, if you look at other countries, they're taking our jobs, their taking our manufacturing," he said on the show,
Talking Points Memo reports.
"They're becoming wealthy as hell. They're loaning us back money…. We're not making our country rich and we're not gonna make our country great again."
But Republicans instead talk about cutting Social Security as a solution, he said.
"People have been paying in for years. They're gonna cut Social Security. They're gonna cut Medicare. They're gonna cut Medicaid," Trump said of his fellow GOP candidates.
"I'm the one that's saying I'm not gonna do that."
"I'm gonna make us so rich you don't have to do those things."
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