Joe Teirab, the Republican running against Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), is distancing himself from comments he made in February on privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age.
Craig represents a swing district in Minnesota and has been a longtime target of the House GOP. But Teirab’s newly unearthed comments — on a key plank for seniors that Democrats have long used to attack GOP candidates — could pose issues in the race.
During a conversation with a voter at a local Minnesota “Pints and Politics” event, Teirab said for someone like him in their late 30s, the “retirement age should maybe change for me or I should get more of an option to have it privatized.”
Teirab also said, “Under a certain age, you have to change what the retirement age is going to be.”
In an interview this week, Teirab characterized his comments as “rambling.” Teirab insisted he didn’t support any changes at all to Social Security or the retirement age.
“A lot of stuff was incoherent in there,” Teirab said of his February comments. “The thing that probably got lost in there is that I would vote against any type of raising the retirement age or taking away any benefits for people who paid into the system.”
Teirab did note that he supported looking into “common sense solutions to make sure that Social Security is a solvent program.”
The GOP challenger said any solution to solvency issues had to involve “people who are at a very young age who haven’t paid into the system and who haven’t even gone into the workforce yet.”
Social Security has been a key focus of Craig’s congressional career. In January, Craig introduced legislation that would cut out federal taxes on Social Security benefits for seniors.
“I think seniors are going to be very upset at anybody that wants to privatize Social Security or raise the retirement age,” Craig told us.
Minnesota’s 2nd District is rated as lean Democrat by the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. Craig won last cycle by five points over Republican Tyler Kistner and has staked out a reputation as a battle-tested incumbent.
— Max Cohen
