At Tuesday's Senate Democratic leadership press briefing, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) slammed Elon Musk over his statements about entitlements.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The food was so good, everybody had triples.
00:07Okay, alright, I want to thank my colleagues for being here, Durbin, Klobuchar, Booker.
00:15Now, yesterday afternoon, Elon Musk confirmed what many of us have long been warning about.
00:24Republicans are ready to gut Social Security and Medicare.
00:30Yesterday, Elon Musk again lied in an interview and said that Social Security and Medicaid,
00:36programs with tens of millions of people who need them, are riddled with fraud and abuse.
00:44When referring to entitlements, which is exactly what Social Security and Medicaid are,
00:51he said, most of the federal spending is entitlements, so that's the big one to eliminate.
00:57Eliminate!
01:00Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Senate Republicans know their math on billionaire tax cuts won't work
01:07without slashing these vital benefits.
01:09They are so hell-bent on giving tax breaks to billionaires that they're willing to sort of
01:15just run a chainsaw across all of America now, including our elderly and our disabled,
01:22to achieve that goal of making these very, very wealthy people even wealthier.
01:27And you saw how Donald Trump, this is not just a one-off.
01:32Musk called Social Security a Ponzi scheme.
01:36The administration has cut lots of offices.
01:39I just learned I'm in an office in a middle-sized city in my state.
01:42Social Security has been closed to people who don't know where to go.
01:45And Donald Trump, in the State of the Union, made up a whole bunch of lies, again,
01:51ridiculing Social Security.
01:54Americans certainly support eliminating waste,
01:57but they don't want to see their Social Security benefits taken away
02:02over a lie perpetuated in hopes of just slashing them to give tax breaks
02:09to billionaires paid for by the middle class.
02:13As Musk lies shamelessly about Social Security, he conveniently ignores
02:19the federal government already conducts an audit of Social Security every single year.
02:25He cherry-picks data to suggest that tens of millions of dead people are getting checks.
02:30This is a lie, like so many of his other lies.
02:34It's not just rhetoric.
02:36The assault on Social Security, as I mentioned, is already underway.
02:40Doge has already taken over the SSA agency.
02:43Unlimited access to private data and benefits of tens of millions of Americans.
02:48The Trump administration has already begun to fire 7,000 staffers,
02:53shuttering local offices, exploding waiting times, delaying benefits.
02:57I ask my Republican colleagues over there, are you fine with this?
03:02Are you fine with decimating Social Security?
03:04Where's your voices?
03:08Do my colleagues agree with Musk calling Social Security one giant scam?
03:14They've done this before.
03:17Several times they've lost out, but they can't help themselves.
03:21Because the only way to get the deepest tax cuts for the billionaires
03:27is dramatically hurt.
03:29Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.
03:33Take it away from people and the American people.
03:37When they see what they're doing, they're going to hate it.
03:39Sooner or later.