Press Releases

(As prepared for delivery) 

“Today, we are here fighting back for the people. Trump and Musk’s crusade against Social Security is a five-alarm fire, and in the nearly 90 years of Social Security’s existence, Republicans have put us closer than ever to a missed benefit or the demise of the Social Security Administration.

Republicans have relaunched a coordinated attack that they’ve been peddling for decades. The lifecycle of Republican governing goes like this: lament over fiscal responsibility, target essential services for cuts, make services hard to use, claim it’s broken, justify cuts and turn around and give the money to their billionaire friends as massive tax handouts. 

Republicans think that if they weaken the Social Security Administration, ramp up frustration over customer service and benefit interruptions, and ultimately wreck Social Security, it’ll be easier to rob it.

Our Republican colleagues have refused to denounce Trump and Musk’s attacks on Social Security. Musk has called it a “Ponzi scheme”, he’s lied about fraud, he won’t explain what his team is doing rummaging around in the people’s personal data, yet the website has been down multiple times in recent weeks and there have been several reports of living beneficiaries’ benefits stopped because they’ve been erroneously marked dead.

The Commerce Secretary said seniors “wouldn’t call and complain” if their monthly check doesn’t come—and to be wary of those who do, because those who are loud are the biggest fraudsters. These billionaires running the country have no idea what it means to depend on your check. But I do.

As someone who is only here today because of Social Security Survivor benefits, my sisters and I depended on what my dad’s earned Social Security benefits.

Thanks to our coordinated outrage and relentless pushback, the “yes man” leading the Social Security Administration is starting to realize the consequences of his actions and has delayed the devastating customer service changes that were supposed to take effect yesterday.

Let me be clear: a delay is not a reprieve, but it’s a proof point of their unpopularity and the success of our collective outrage.

We cannot let up. We’ve seen this playbook before, and we’ve defeated this playbook before. When President Bush took this tact, we got loud, we organized, and we stopped them in their tracks.

Let’s do it again, and tell our Republican colleagues once and for all: “hands off Social Security!”

###