Ron Wyden Slams ‘Destruction Of Social Security’: ‘The DOGE Crowd Is Breaking A Sacred Promise’

2 days ago

During a Senate Finance Committee hearing last week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) slammed President Trump and Elon Musk’s actions toward Social Security.

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Transcript

00:00Member Wyden for his opening remarks. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman this morning the finance committee gathers to discuss the future

00:08Of the Social Security Administration and its potential new leader

00:12Frank busy got busy. Nana

00:15Today's news brings fresh reports that it is bedlam out there in Social Security

00:23That's what I heard last week from senior Social Security staffers at a town hall meeting

00:29I arranged in my hometown of Portland for federal employees

00:34Senior Social Security staff told me that they were short-staffed

00:39even before Doge arrived how they can't respond on the phone how the

00:46websites are crashing and

00:48Seniors are getting lost in the system. It is clear that this is happening around

00:55America today

00:57Every day there's more hard evidence to this

01:00So I believe it is time to bring a halt

01:04to Doge

01:06destruction of Social Security

01:08Before it goes any further

01:12With these developments the Doge crowd is

01:15breaking a sacred promise to deliver Americans their earned Social Security benefits and

01:22It is time for every member of this committee to step up and commit to rolling back these disastrous actions and

01:31bringing sanity back to Social Security

01:35Today's hearing is going to be an opportunity for our nominee to tell the American people whose side is he on?

01:43Is he on the side of American workers who paid into Social Security and now are being whipsawed

01:49by the Doge bureaucracy

01:52or is he on the side of Elon Musk and Howard Lutnick the Donald Trump cronies who think Social Security is a pyramid scheme and

02:00That seniors looking for help when their checks don't come on time must somehow be fraudsters

02:07The urgency for today's hearing couldn't be greater since Donald Trump took office Social Security has

02:14experienced the most chaos in its history

02:18mass personnel layoffs

02:20Eliminating phone service for basic help sending seniors

02:24To overcrowded and understaffed field offices that have also been put on the chopping block for closure

02:31political appointees poking around your most sensitive private information

02:36Creating a big risk for what I call the mother of all identity thefts

02:42claims of massive fraud by Donald Trump and Elon Musk

02:47This approach is a

02:49prescription for denying earned benefits to seniors and Americans with disabilities

02:56And I want to be clear as we begin this discussion

02:59If Americans lose access to their Social Security because of Trump spawn chaos

03:05That is Doge

03:07stealing their money

03:10Both Donald Trump and Elon Musk have repeated claims that there are millions of Social Security numbers assigned to people over

03:17150 years of age and they're still drawing benefits

03:21Elon Musk says there's a massive amount of fraud and that Social Security is quote the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time

03:30Donald Trump says that money is being paid to quote many Americans over age 100

03:36Donald Trump thinks more than 1,000 people over 220 years of age are actually being paid by Social Security

03:45Many Americans may be wondering if those individuals are still receiving their revolutionary war pensions at this point

03:52These are lies. Here are some facts last year

03:56the Social Security inspector general issued a report showing Social Security retirement and disability has a

04:02Criminal fraud rate of get this. Oh

04:05point. Oh, oh 9%

04:08By the way as a percentage that's much lower than the 1.4 billion in assets that

04:15Reportedly went missing on the Tesla balance sheet just last week

04:21Social Security itself reported eight and eighty nine thousand Americans aged 99 and over receiving benefits in

04:28December of last year and Social Security automatically stops paying benefits at age

04:33115 even if a death has not been reported so don't take it from me

04:39Check this sign. It says why doge is struggling to find fraud in Social Security?

04:47So what's behind these lies on Social Security in my view?

04:52They're deliberately misleading the public to set the stage for cuts to Social Security benefits that are going to be draped in

05:00anti-fraud rhetoric

05:02The same way we're hearing the case being made for cutting Medicaid

05:07Let's be clear again

05:09Senate Democrats are gonna fight attempts to cut

05:13Americans earned benefits at every single turn

05:18Our nominee has made a career out of taking over troubled businesses and using what I think is a pretty ominous recipe

05:24Got the company by firing hundreds or thousands of workers sell off pieces of the business and merge with another company

05:31That resume and approach ought to concern Americans if somebody is thinking about applying that pattern to Social Security

05:39As I've been saying for weeks now

05:41This approach is a prelude to privatizing Social Security and handing it over to private equity

05:48Every single member of this committee knows that there are ways to strengthen Social Security

05:54But what Social Security does well year after year is to get the checks out the door to seniors that rely on them on

06:01time every single month

06:03I'll close by saying improving Social Security doesn't start with shuttering the offices that handle modernization

06:10anti-fraud activities and civil rights violations

06:13It doesn't start with the scrim indiscriminately firing or buying out thousands of workers and it doesn't start with restricting

06:20customer service over the phone and drawing up plans to close field and regional offices

06:26The Musk Lutnick Trump plan for Social Security is to take away earned benefits from seniors

06:33hollow out the agency in preparation to hand it over to private equity and

06:37Give the savings over to their billionaire friends

06:41the fact of the matter is Social Security could be fully funded for generations to come if you just crack down on billionaire tax cheats and

06:50Eliminated the payroll tax cut cap for millionaires and billionaires

06:55This year alone the Finance Committee has considered multiple Trump nominees that for one

07:01Strategy or another have figured out ways to avoid paying what they owe into the programs that they are being nominated to

07:08actually run

07:10Treasury Secretary Scott Besson paid little to no Medicare tax and dr. Oz managed to avoid paying both

07:17Medicare and Social Security

07:19So this morning our nominee has an opportunity to share his vision for improving Social Security

07:26Not dismantling and

07:28Americans deserve to hear this

07:30Individual's vision for making customer service easier not creating more roadblocks

07:36Which seem to get more and more strong each day?

07:40Americans deserve to hear a clear rejection of Elon Musk's view that Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme

07:48Perpetrating fraud on the American people. Mr. Chairman. Thank you

Ron Wyden Slams ‘Destruction Of Social Security’: ‘The DOGE Crowd Is Breaking A Sacred Promise’

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