Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On DOGE Plans To Bulldoze The SSA And The Threat To Americans' Social Security Benefits

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor warning about the alarming influence of DOGE and Donald Trump over the Social Security Administration and the risks their interference poses to Social Security benefits for seniors, people with disabilities, and working Americans. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

I want to point my colleagues to a profoundly disturbing report this morning in the Washington Post.

This morning, we learned that the acting head of the Social Security Administration admitted what many of us fear: DOGE is calling the shots and their mistakes are going to put benefits in danger, Social Security benefits in danger.

Listen to these stunning quotes from the acting head of the Social Security Administration.

He says “things are currently operating in a way I have never seen in government before.”

He says DOGE are “outsiders who are unfamiliar with nuances of SSA programs.”

And he admits “they will make mistakes.”

That is unacceptable.

Social Security is the most sacrosanct program in government. It has helped seniors and people with disabilities for nearly a century.

And now, for the first time ever, DOGE is putting Social Security benefits in real danger, and the American people are frightened and outraged at the same time.

DOGE is spreading outlandish lies about fraud and waste that we all know doesn’t actually exist. They are cherry-picking data to spin a fantasy detached from reality so they can again use that chainsaw. Social Security is the last place where a chainsaw should be used.

The Senate, Democrats and Republicans, needs to wake up to this crisis. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

I ask my Republican colleagues: are you all fine with this? Are you comfortable letting Elon Musk and a bunch of inexperienced people bulldoze their way through Social Security benefits?

Mark my words: if DOGE’s chainsaw approach leads to people missing their checks, the uproar from people back home will make all of Washington, D.C. go deaf.

And let’s not kid ourselves: this is all part of the plan for Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE are coming for people’s Social Security benefits.

They want to hide behind the boogeymen of fraud we all know doesn’t exist in order to justify stealing people’s checks. 

And they’re already doing it.

Cutting 7,000 employees from SSA is a benefit cut.

Closing field offices and eliminating customer service staff is a benefit cut.

I am alarmed that all of this might be only the beginning.

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