Billionaire commerce secretary says only 'fraudsters' need Social Security
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made an appearance on Trump stooge David Sacks’ podcast “All In” on Thursday, during which he said that anyone calling for help because their Social Security check did not get paid is likely a fraudster.
"Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who's 94, she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She thinks something got messed up and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise screaming, yelling, and complaining. And all the guys who did PayPal, like Elon knows this by heart, right? Anybody who's been in the payment system and the process system knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen,” he said.
Lutnick is a multibillionaire, so it's unlikely that his mother would ever need help with a missing Social Security check.
“Is that because her son-in-law is a billionaire or?” the Democrats of the House Ways and Means Committee wrote on X.
However, the vast majority of Social Security recipients are dependent on those checks to pay for their essential living costs.
Approximately half of the population aged 65 or older living in households that receive at least 50% of their family income from Social Security benefits, and about 25% rely on Social Security benefits for at least 90% of their family income, according to a 2017 report from the Social Security Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics.
For those Americans, missing a Social Security payment could be the difference in affording rent, food, or medical expenses.
“For 40% of seniors, Social Security checks are their sole source of income—including 365,000+ in New Mexico. Trump’s billionaire class doesn’t care. Not being able to pay your bills doesn’t make you a fraudster,” Democratic Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico wrote on X.
Lutnick’s comments raise the question about whether the Trump administration will target people who have issues with their Social Security payments, accusing them of fraud if they reach out for help and shutting off their earned benefits for good.
Lutnick’s comments are the latest proof that President Donald Trump and multibillionaire Elon Musk are trying to kill Social Security—one of the most popular social safety net programs in the country.
Trump already plans to cut 7,000 jobs from the Social Security Administration and close multiple Social Security offices around the country, which will make it harder for the 73 million Social Security recipients to resolve issues with their benefits.
And Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has changed protocol for Social Security recipients to validate their identity, forcing them to prove their identity online or travel to one of the overloaded Social Security offices in person—if they can even get an appointment.
“This change will substantially delay their access to their earned benefits. All families with children who qualify for benefits will have to visit S.S.A. in person because children cannot have ‘my Social Security’ accounts,” Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told The New York Times.
Musk is actively trying to destroy Social Security, which he’s called a “Ponzi scheme”—likely in an effort to justify cuts to the program—to pay for Trump’s tax cuts for the rich.
Meanwhile, Leland Dudek, the acting head of the Social Security Administration, threatened on Thursday to shut the whole agency down over a court ruling that restricts DOGE’s access to sensitive information.
Dudek complained to the Washington Post on Friday that the order was too broad and he didn’t understand it.
“Unless I get clarification,” he told the Post, “I’ll just start to shut it down.”
And now Lutnick is in on the effort, too.
It’s probably just because Lutnick is an idiot who is obsessed with Musk, so much so that he made a pitch on Fox News for people to buy Musk’s shitty Tesla cars to help the flailing company’s stock price recover.
House Democrats are now investigating Lutnick’s comments, accusing Lutnick of illegally using his government position to promote a product.
But it’s definitely the grandmas calling about their Social Security checks who are the fraudsters.