(CNN) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who once expressed support for privatizing Social Security, said Thursday on Fox News that “we’re not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans.”
“I think that that’s pretty clear,” he said.
His remarks came in response to a question about a proposal to raise the retirement age to collect Social Security to 70. As a congressman, DeSantis voted for nonbinding budget resolutions that would have done just that.
DeSantis’ apparently change in heart on Social Security comes as the potential 2024 presidential contender has faced criticism from Democrats as well as former President Donald Trump about his past support for privatization and other changes to Medicare and Social Security.
A recent CNN KFile review of DeSantis’ comments during a 2012 congressional campaign found repeated support for plans to replace Medicare with private insurance. In one interview with a local newspaper, DeSantis said he supported “the same thing” for Social Security, citing the need for “market forces” to restructure the program, CNN KFile found.
DeSantis told the local St. Augustine Record that it was “unsustainable” to allow seniors to retire into their late 60s.
But on Thursday, DeSantis dismissed concerns about the long-term financial outlook of federal entitlement programs as coming from “budget people.”
“There’s a lot of the budget people used to say, they would blame Social Security or Medicare for budget woes. But the reality is they have printed trillions and trillions of dollars, and that has really fueled the inflation,” DeSantis said.
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