Maybe you thought that when Donald Trump was running for president and promised not to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, he meant he’d refuse to reduce the benefits Americans are entitled to under the three programs. It looks more and more like that wasn’t true at all. Trump stood out from the rest of the Republican pack for his explicit, repeated pledges not to cut entitlements. Here’s what he tweeted in May 2015 before he was officially a candidate:

I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Huckabee copied me. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2015

Likewise, in his campaign kickoff speech the next month at Trump Tower, Trump proclaimed that he would “save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts.” But what was Trump actually saying? Most Trump voters, and most Americans, surely assumed that he meant that he would refuse to cut the promised benefits under all three programs. For instance, someone born in 1970, who made an average of $60,000 per year, and retires in 2037 at age 67 is scheduled to receive a bit under $2,000 in Social Security benefits per month. During the campaign it seemed clear Trump meant he wouldn’t cut those $2,000 in benefits. As he put it, “I’m not going to cut [Social Security] at all; I’m going to bring money in, and we’re going to save it.” (This was not a reckless claim by any means; increasing Social Security revenue to meet promised benefits would be simple and relatively painless.) But that was then, and this is now. Recent statements by both Trump and his White House have made clear that he only considers a program to have been “cut” if the overall, absolute level of spending on the program goes down. Here’s how Trump explained it on Twitter, talking about the fate of Medicaid under the Senate GOP’s Better Care Reconciliation Act:

Democrats purposely misstated Medicaid under new Senate bill - actually goes up. pic.twitter.com/necCt4K6UH — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2017

Meanwhile, a White House blog post made the same case at greater length. We need to “break the beltway mentality,” it said, because “only in Washington would anyone have the nerve to claim an 18 percent increase in government spending on top of inflation is a ‘cut.’”

Graphic: White House website