At Tuesday's Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) questioned Frank Bisignano, President Trump's nominee to be Commissioner of Social Security Administration.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Senator Whitehouse, thanks very much. Welcome, Mr. Bisognano. Two quick questions. One,
00:08I'm concerned on behalf of constituents with social security disability that there are cliffs
00:14in the benefit system that create very peculiar behavior around the edge of the cliff. I think
00:20we should engage in bipartisan cliff smoothing. Is that something that you would work with us on?
00:26I'm prepared to research it if I'm fortunate enough to be confirmed as soon as I get in there.
00:33And report back to you, sir. Okay, thank you. If you are confirmed,
00:36will you check and make sure that the musk infiltration of social security databases
00:42has not damaged those databases or left back doors for private actors to get back into to access
00:49social security's data system? It will be a total review, yes.
00:53Thank you. So here's where I think we are. I think there's a bit of a plot afoot here.
01:01Step one is to lie about not intending to damage social security and to protect
01:09social security benefits. The president is a profligate liar. Russia didn't invade Ukraine.
01:19The election was rigged and stolen from me. I'm not a criminal. DOJ was weaponized. Climate
01:25change is a hoax. You just can't stop the lies. And I think I'm not going to attack social security
01:34is a lie. So that's step one, lie about it. Step two is discredit social security. Trump and Musk
01:42have been lying loudly about imaginary social security fraud, which seems to me to be an effort
01:49to lower public confidence in the program. They falsely called it a Ponzi scheme. Well, if those
01:55things aren't true, why are they saying them? What is the motive behind those lies? I think the
02:00motive is to discredit the system. Then you send in your Musk characters and you start them messing
02:08around in the operations of social security to damage it. And as we were sitting here, Mr.
02:13Bisognano, here comes the breaking news from the Washington Post. Headline, social security is
02:18breaking down amid long waits, waves of calls, and web crashes. A flood of cuts led by Elon Musk
02:27has sent the agency in a meltdown as a new commissioner, you, prepares to take charge.
02:33So you also have the billionaire commerce secretary saying that an interruption of benefits
02:41would be a good way to sniff out fraud, because the only people who'd complain when their benefits
02:49were interrupted would be the fraudsters, which is idiotic, frankly. But it is part of this campaign
02:58to disrupt as well as discredit social security so that there is then an interruption of benefits.
03:06Once there's an interruption of benefits, then Trump can declare an emergency in social security
03:13and send in the tech bros and the private equity folks, some of whom are already messing around
03:19in social security, to say, oh, to save social security, we have to take it over.
03:24We've got to have the tech bros and the private equity people take over
03:28social security. And then that's it. The longstanding Republican goal of getting
03:34rid of social security as a public program is achieved. And under the pretense that they've
03:41saved it, broken it in order to save it. Will you? Let's just say that that turns out to be
03:49the set of facts that you determined to be the accurate case once you get over there.
03:55Will you participate in or defend against that scheme?
04:00Well, I think my job as a commissioner is to ensure that every beneficiary
04:09receives their payments on time, that disability claims are processed in the manner they should be.
04:16My first actions are going to be to get organized around delivering the services.
04:22And I've only been given one order, which is to run the agency in the right fashion.
04:30What role will privatizing social security, bringing in private equity and tech people,
04:36and giving Elon Musk and his little crowd a role have in all of that?
04:43I've never thought about privatizing. It's not a word that anybody's ever talked to me about.
04:49And I don't see this institution as anything other than a government agency that gets run
04:55for the benefit of the American public. Let's hope that that is the way this ends.
05:00Thank you. Yeah, my guarantee I'll make it in that way.