An independent Senate candidate in South Dakota said during an interview Wednesday night that National Journal misquoted him when, in a story published last year, it said he supported gradually raising Social Security's retirement age and reducing benefits to beneficiaries.
But a review of a taped recording of National Journal's conversation with Larry Pressler, a former three-term Republican senator, shows that he did advocate for both.
In a story published by the Argus Leader, Pressler said he supported a plan to make high-income earners pay a small extra fee to make Social Security more sustainable.
"If we don't do something like that, we would have to raise the retirement age, which I am not in favor of doing," he said.
Asked by the newspaper why that account differed from the one written in National Journal, Pressler denied he ever advocated raising the program's age.
"I was clearly misquoted," he said.
But in an interview with National Journal last November, Pressler explained that the rationale for his candidacy "“ at least at the time "“ was reducing the national deficit with a so-called "grand bargain." That meant Republicans needed to accept higher tax rates while Democrats agreed to social spending cuts.