Republican Platform Committee Monday Used a wooden board The bill was drafted by aides to Donald Trump, whose new language softens previous Republican positions on marriage and abortion while laying out a series of utopian economic promises.
These include vows to “end inflation,” make the United States a “manufacturing superpower,” and “significant tax cuts for workers.”
At the same time, the document echoes Trump’s pledge not to cut “a penny” from Social Security and Medicare, expensive but popular government benefit and health care programs.
A person familiar with the matter told CNBC that the Republican National Committee panel approved the 16-page platform in a vote of 84 to 18.
That’s a fraction of the size of the platform the RNC used in the 2016 and 2020 election cycles. The new platform further solidifies Trump’s ongoing efforts to reshape the Republican Party’s populist, nationalist image while downplaying some of the issues that were once core to the party.
The Trump campaign touted the new document as “President Donald J. Trump’s 2024 Republican Platform” in a press release Monday afternoon.
The platform now opens with language similar to Trump campaign press releases, including the presumptive nominee’s “Make America Great Again” and “America First” slogans.
The preamble envisions a Republican-controlled Congress and White House in 2025 and lists 20 “commitments we will soon achieve.”
The first two: sealing off the U.S. southern border and “carrying out the largest deportations in U.S. history.”
The platform also pledges to “prevent World War III,” cut regulations designed to encourage EV adoption, end the “weaponization of government” and “disincentivize men from participating in women’s sports.”
The newly condensed party platform offers far fewer policy details than its predecessor, sometimes reading more like a list of preferred outcomes than a statement of belief or legislative goals.
At one point, the platform declared: “Republicans will use strength to end global chaos and restore peace, reduce geopolitical risks and lower commodity prices.”
When it comes to abortion, the changes are evident. The old platform took a hard line on abortion, calling for a “human life amendment to the Constitution” in a lengthy article that used the word “abortion” dozens of times.
The Trump-backed platform used the word just once, in a brief paragraph, expressing support for allowing states to pass their own abortion laws while vowing to oppose “late-term abortion.”
The shift in focus comes as Democratic President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has made abortion a key issue in the November election.
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 — a vote upheld by all three Trump-appointed justices — and was followed by a strong Democratic showing in the election.
The Republican presidential candidate has publicly acknowledged taking the issue to state legislatures, some of which have been quick to restrict abortion.
However, in recent months, Trump has falsely claimed that legal scholars unanimously support overturning Roe, which has been the law of the land for nearly 50 years.
The newly adopted platform also overturns the party’s previous claim that “traditional marriage and the family, based on the marriage of one man and one woman, are the foundation of a free society.”
“Republicans will promote a culture that values the sanctity of marriage,” the new platform states, adding, “We will end policies that punish families.”
Republicans also abandoned their old platforms on Social Security and Medicare.
The 2016 and 2020 platforms state that “Medicare’s long-term debt is in the trillions of dollars, financed by a shrinking workforce relative to the size of future beneficiaries… When a major program is so obviously It crashed while walking towards the train and it was time to put it on a safer track.
It proposes a number of reforms, including “setting a more realistic eligibility age based on today’s longer lifespans”.
The new platform eliminates any discussion about the challenges of keeping projects solvent.
“Republicans will address inflation, free up America’s energy, restore economic growth, and secure our borders to preserve Social Security and Medicare funding for the next generation and beyond,” the report reads.
“We will ensure these programs remain solvent long into the future by reversing harmful Democratic policies and unleashing new economic prosperity.”
The stance echoes that of Trump, who has opposed welfare reform and attacked political opponents who consider any changes to the two programs.
The platform was adopted a week before Republicans formally selected Trump as their presidential candidate.
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