Schumer Slams Musk For 'Shamelessly Lying' About Social Security, Warns Of 'Immense' Uproar To Cuts

2 days ago

During remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about Elon Musk's comments about Social Security.

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Transcript

00:00Mr. President, yesterday afternoon, Elon Musk confirmed what many of us have been

00:06warning about for a long time. Republicans are getting ready to gut

00:11Social Security and Medicare. Let me repeat that. Elon Musk confirmed what

00:18many of us have warned about. Republicans are getting ready to gut

00:22Social Security and gut Medicare. Here's what he said during an interview with

00:29Fox Business. The richest man on earth repeated again a bevy of lies that

00:36entitlement programs, that entitlement programs tens of millions of

00:41people rely on are riddled with fraud and abuse. That's a pretext to slashing

00:47them. But it's false. He added most of the federal spending is entitlements.

00:55That's true. So that the big ones to the big one to eliminate. So that's the big

01:01one to eliminate, meaning Social Security. Let me quote Elon Musk again. That's the

01:07big one, Social Security, to eliminate. It's rare to hear Republicans tell the

01:14truth about their plans so directly. What Elon Musk is saying is that sooner or

01:20later, Republicans are going to target people's Social Security and Medicare

01:25benefits. The outrage that the richest man in the world would tell millions of

01:32seniors who depend on those checks each month, that it's fraud, that it's waste,

01:38is outrageous. He doesn't have any idea the harm it would do. And it isn't fraud.

01:49Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans know that the math on their billionaire

01:55tax cuts will not work without going after these benefits. And all they care

02:00about is cutting their taxes further. Outrageous. As America begins to hear

02:05this, America is going to realize what a bad bargain Donald Trump was in the

02:09election. It's another awful reminder that under Donald Trump and Elon Musk

02:16and Republicans, billionaires win, American families lose. There's something

02:23truly rotten about the Republican agenda when a multi-billionaire, the

02:28richest man in the world, is allowed to lie so casually about one of America's

02:33most sacred programs in order to justify taking benefits away from hard-working

02:38Americans. Few programs have done more good, have helped more people, have been

02:44more popular than Social Security has for nearly a century. Few programs are as

02:50beloved by Americans as Social Security. Americans, of course, support eliminating

02:58waste. But they do not want to see their Social Security benefits get taken away.

03:05How is Elon Musk trying to do this? He's using the oldest trick in the book,

03:11shamelessly lying about Social Security. Just as Donald Trump did in his State of

03:18the Union address, where he listed hundreds of people who were born a

03:21hundred or twenty years ago and couldn't show a single one was getting Social

03:25Security. Musk is shamelessly lying about Social Security, claiming it's riddled

03:31with fraud in order to justify taking benefits away from seniors and retirees.

03:37He ignores the very bold, plain fact that the federal government has already

03:44conducts an audit of Social Security every year. It's a legit audit, not a

03:52partisan audit. It's been done during Trump's presidency and Biden's

03:57presidency. What did it find? Less than one percent, one percent, less than one

04:05percent of all payments from 2015 to 2022 were made in error. That, Mr. Musk, is

04:11not what fraud looks like. He cherry-picks data to suggest that tens of

04:18millions of dead people are getting checks. This is a lie. And to be sure, this

04:27isn't just about Elon Musk's rhetoric. The assault on Social Security is taking

04:32place in taking shape in practice.

04:38Doge has already taken over the Social Security

04:43Administration agency and has free access to the private data and benefits

04:49of tens of millions of Americans. The Trump administration has already begun

04:53to fire 7,000 staffers, which means local offices will shut down, customer service

05:00wait times will explode, the risk of delayed benefits will skyrocket. So I

05:06ask my Republican colleagues, you all fine with this? Are they fine with Musk

05:12calling Social Security one giant scam? Let's find a single person here on the

05:19Republican side who starts rebutting Musk once and for all when they know he's

05:24doing what the American people hate and is not telling the truth. Do our

05:30colleagues believe, agree with Musk's lie that hundreds of billions of dollars

05:35in outright fraud has compromised Social Security? Mark my words, if Elon

05:42Musk and Doge continue their attacks against Social Security, if the president

05:46continues his attacks which he made in the State of the Union, sooner or later

05:50benefits are going to be delayed, mistakenly halted, and the political

05:55uproar from Americans from one end of the country to the other, red, purple, and

06:00blue, will be immense.

Schumer Slams Musk For 'Shamelessly Lying' About Social Security, Warns Of 'Immense' Uproar To Cuts

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