If Trump cared about being "excoriated by the mediots" then he wouldn't have made his comments on walls, rounding up 12 million people, banning Muslims from entering the country, or any of the other subjects he's already been trashed on. Trump does not discuss his plans to cut such spending because he has no plans to cut such spending. It's as simple as that.
Walls and soforth are easy to talk about, and carry little blowback. It’s hard to generate sympathy for illegal aliens who rape, kill, maim, etc.
Now say you’re going to cut welfare spending by X% or even cut the rate of growth as Gingrich did, and mediots will have a field day running you into the ground with sob stories about how hard they will be hit having to actually pay for their own cell phone, etc etc.
You can not like Trump, and you are welcome to that, but consider that Cruz has not offered any such plan either. So what does he plan to do?