The claim: Donald Trump plans to defer student loan payments and end payroll tax if reelected in 2024
A Dec. 19, 2023, Instagram video (direct link, archive link) shows a clip of a man with text above his head that reads, “Trump plans if he gets re-elected for president 2024 (sic).”
The video continues with former President Donald Trump talking about student loans and payroll tax.
“So I will be deferring payments on student loans at zero interest until further notice,” Trump says. “After I hopefully get elected, we’ll be terminating the payroll tax.”
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Our rating: False
The video of Trump is from 2020. He has not mentioned deferring student loan payments or terminating payroll tax as part of his 2024 presidential campaign.
Post includes years-old video of Trump
The video of the former president isn’t recent, as the Instagram video claims. The footage is from August 2020, when Trump first ran for reelection.
As part of his administration’s COVID-19 relief plan, Trump deferred student loan payments through the end of that year. Since he lacked the authority to “terminate” the payroll tax, as he said in the video, he ordered the Treasury Department to delay workers’ obligation to pay the tax until 2021, The New York Times reported.
Fact check: Trump speech highlighted prior experience as commander-in-chief
Neither issue is mentioned anywhere on Trump’s 2024 campaign website, and it is unlikely either will become part of his campaign plan.
Trump does not have the authority to end the payroll tax, and the former president also has a history of opposing student loan forgiveness. In 2020, he released a budget for the following year that slashed many aid programs for borrowers. And in 2023 he publicly sided with the Supreme Court’s rejection of President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.
USA TODAY reached out to Trump’s team and the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
PolitiFact also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources:
- C-SPAN, Aug. 12, 2020, President Trump Coronavirus News Conference
- Donald J. Trump, accessed Jan. 5, Issues
- White House Archives, Aug. 8, 2020, Memorandum on Continued Student Loan Payment Relief During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- The New York Times, Sept. 11, 2020, Trump’s Payroll Tax ‘Cut’ Fizzles
- CNBC, Aug. 24, 2023, Here’s where the Republican presidential candidates stand on student loan forgiveness
- CNBC, Feb. 10, 2020, Trump looks to kill student loan forgiveness program
- USA TODAY, June 30, 2023, Supreme Court strikes down plan to forgive student loan debt; Biden vows to use alternate path
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