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Don't Be Fooled: Trump and Musk’s War on Social Security Continues
Their real agenda isn’t about efficiency. It’s about dismantling one of America’s most popular federal programs, piece by piece.
Mar 13, 2025
Despite pushback from Democrats in Congress and advocates for seniors, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have sustained their attack on the Social Security Administration (SSA), the agency that administers earned benefits for some 73 million Americans. Trump and Musk claim to be unearthing “fraud.” But don’t be fooled. Their real agenda isn’t about efficiency. It’s about dismantling one of America’s most popular federal programs, piece by piece.
What started as a campaign of misinformation has grown into a reckless operation aimed at destabilizing the SSA. Musk, with an assist from Trump, has spread outlandish lies, claiming massive fraud in Social Security with zero evidence. Take Trump’s ridiculous implication that 360 year-olds might be collecting benefits, or Musk’s claim on X that fraud in federal programs surpasses all private scams combined. These allegations have been thoroughly debunked. In fact, federal audits show improper Social Security payments are below 1% of total benefits paid—hardly “massive.”
Undaunted by thorough fact-checking in the media, Musk declared this week that there is “$700 billion in waste and fraud” within Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. “The waste and fraud in entitlement spending... that’s the big one to eliminate,” Musk said, suggesting cuts of up to $700 billion a year.
Trump and Musk don’t want to improve Social Security; they want to starve and privatize it...
The real danger lies, not only in the rhetoric, but in the actions of Trump, Musk, and their DOGE( Department of Government Efficiency). Under DOGE’s influence, SSA leadership has unveiled plans to radically reduce the agency’s workforce (which already is at a 50-year low), is bullying career employees into early retirement, shuttering field offices, and tried to make it more difficult for parents to obtain Social Security numbers for their newborns.
Just this week, according to the Washington Post, the Trump administration is considering “dramatically curtailing” customer service on the agency’s 1-800 phone line. Under this new policy, elderly and disabled people would be re-directed to the internet and a shrinking number of SSA field offices for “claims processing and direct-deposit bank transactions.” This is another sign of the administration’s callous disregard for beneficiaries, especially those who rely on telephone assistance and may not be able to access services online or in person.
The Trump administration’s latest policy reversal perfectly encapsulates the cruelty of their approach. While former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley worked to mitigate the financial pain inflicted on beneficiaries who receive overpayment notices, Trump’s SSA has reverted to withholding 100% of beneficiaries’ monthly benefits as a default until overpayments are fully repaid. We have called this policy petty and cruel, especially because overpayments are usually due to errors on the agency’s part.
Trump and Musk’s actions are undermining customer service for Social Security beneficiaries. Wait times on the agency’s 1-800 phone line are increasing, while the availability of appointments at SSA field offices are becoming sparser. More people will die awaiting adjudication of disability claims. Basic services that seniors, disabled individuals, and families rely on could grind to a halt. This is a deliberate effort to undermine public confidence and make Social Security a scapegoat for some imagined inefficiency.
As part of their takeover at SSA, Musk and his DOGE team have been given unprecedented access to Americans’ sensitive personal data, including Social Security numbers, financial information, and medical records. Former SSA officials have sounded the alarm. Tiffany Flick, a long-serving SSA leader, resigned in protest after DOGE demanded access to secure databases without following proper protocols. Her warning in a court affidavit says it all: “This isn’t about reform or fraud prevention. It’s about dismantling the SSA’s ability to fulfill its mission.”
Anyone who shares our grave concern for Social Security should contact their elected representatives and the White House. Tell them Musk, Trump, and DOGE must stop interfering in the Social Security Administration.
And why? Musk himself tipped his hand, blasting Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and emphasizing the “need to rethink entitlements altogether.” Trump has been equally dismissive, calling Social Security a “scam” and proposing changes that would expedite the depletion of the Social Security trust fund.
Trump and Musk don’t want to improve Social Security; they want to starve and privatize it, despite Trump’s hollow promises “not to touch” the program. His and Musk’s fingerprints are all over it now. Even the hand-picked acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, seems to question the wisdom of the administration’s intervention. Pro Publica reports that Dudek said in a meeting with advocates, “I’ve had to make some tough choices, choices I didn’t agree with, but the president wanted it and I did it.”
The American people will not stand for this. Social Security is not just a government program. It’s a promise made to every hardworking American who has paid into the system so they can retire with dignity or receive benefits if faced with disability or the death of a family breadwinner. The program should not be a political target for billionaires like Elon Musk—who have no understanding or respect for its role in our society, nearly 90 years strong.
Anyone who shares our grave concern for Social Security should contact their elected representatives and the White House. Tell them Musk, Trump, and DOGE must stop interfering in the Social Security Administration. Make phone calls. Send emails. Attend town halls. Demand that they defend the right of every American to access these benefits. If there ever was a time to raise our voices, it’s now.
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Warren Urges Medicare Nominee Oz to 'Divest From Financial Conflicts of Interest'
"By making these commitments, you would increase Americans' trust in your ability to serve the public interest during your time at CMS—rather than the special interests of companies in your network."
Mar 12, 2025
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday called on Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump's nominee to head the federal agency in charge of Medicare, to divest all financial ties to Big Pharma and healthcare companies in order to avoid conflicts of interest and gain the public's trust.
"Congratulations on your nomination to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)," Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter to the celebrity heart surgeon and erstwhile purveyor of phony weight loss cures. "If confirmed, you will be expected to steward CMS' $1.5 trillion budget in the best interest of the over 140 million Americans on Medicare and Medicaid. Entering this role with financial conflicts of interest would undermine your effectiveness and the effectiveness of the programs you are slated to administer."
"To avoid this, I request that you agree to: divest any remaining financial interests in health-related companies or patents that you will have the power to influence, recuse from matters involving your former employers and clients, and, for at least four years after you leave office, not lobby CMS or join the industries that depend on CMS' work," the senator said.
"Entering this role with financial conflicts of interest would undermine your effectiveness and the effectiveness of the programs you are slated to administer."
"By making these commitments, you would increase Americans' trust in your ability to serve the public interest during your time at CMS—rather than the special interests of companies in your network," she added.
"You have deep ties to companies that could profit from your decisions at CMS," Warren noted. "You currently serve as a managing member or adviser of multiple healthcare and pharmaceutical firms with a financial stake in CMS policy, including how the agency sets payment rates and coverage determinations for Medicare and Medicaid."
Warren continued:
You also use your public platforms—including your website, TV show, TikTok, and Instagram pages—to promote drugs, such as Ozempic, produced by pharmaceutical companies that are currently seeking expanded CMS coverage approval and that are subject to government drug negotiations—which you would be responsible for conducting. You have been paid to push your show's viewers to enroll in the private alternative to Medicare, Medicare Advantage—a program run by private health insurers that overcharged CMS by at least $83 billion in 2024 alone.
Doctors have critiqued you for allegedly "promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain." Furthermore, much of your financial portfolio (worth at least $98 million) is invested in healthcare and pharmaceutical companies whose value is tied to CMS' regulatory work.
Last December, the watchdog Accountable.US revealed that Oz had invested as much as $56 million in three companies with direct CMS interests. In 2022, Oz's single biggest healthcare holding was up to $26 million in Sharecare, a digital health company Oz co-founded, and which became the exclusive in-home supplemental care program for 1.5 million Medicare Advantage customers.
On Tuesday, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen published a research brief examining the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on political lobbying by Medicare Advantage companies ahead of Oz's confirmation hearing, which is scheduled for Friday morning.
Warren and other Democratic lawmakers previously pressed Oz on his advocacy for Medicare privatization, including a 2020 call for enrolling all U.S. seniors in Medicare Advantage plans.
Last month, Oz pledged to divestfrom insurance companies and drugmakers and step down from his advisory positions if his nomination is confirmed.
"I appreciate that you have agreed to divest much of your portfolio and resign from your advisory posts," Warren wrote. "Still, given your close ties to the industry that you would regulate, if you are confirmed, the public would have reason to question your impartiality and commitment to serving the public's interest."
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International Push for Consumer Boycott of US Grows
"A lot of people feel betrayed by our closest ally," said one marketer in Canada, where President Donald Trump has imposed 25% tariffs.
Mar 12, 2025
With declining consumer interest in Tesla vehicles sending CEO and Trump administration ally Elon Musk into an apparent panic over the electric automaker's plummeting stock—spurring an impromptu car show on the White House lawn Tuesday with President Donald Trump scolding Americans for not buying Musk's products—recent reports from across Europe and Canada suggest the two right-wing leaders are pushing global consumers to reject not just Tesla, but a wide array of American goods.
As The Guardianreported Wednesday, numbers released this week by Statistics Canada showed waning enthusiasm for Canadians to visit their southern neighbor, with 23% fewer Canadians taking road trips into the U.S.—the most popular mode of cross-border travel—this year so far compared to February 2024.
With Trump initiating a trade war with Canada—falsely claiming the country is a major source of fentanyl flowing into the U.S.—by imposing 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports and threatening to take over the country as the "cherished Fifty First State," consumers have been downloading apps like "Maple Scan" and "Is This Canadian?" to avoid purchasing U.S.-made products.
"A lot of people feel betrayed by our closest ally," Emma Cochran, an Ottawa-based marketer, toldNBC News on Wednesday.
Cochrane partnered with a colleague to make hats and shirts emblazoned with the phrase, "Canada is not for sale," one of which was worn by Ontario Premier Doug Ford last week.
"This felt like a way that we could participate and just kind of say, 'We're going to stand up for Canada,'" she told NBC.
Canadian officials announced retaliatory tariffs on $21 billion in goods on Wednesday after Trump raised global steel and aluminum tariffs to 25%—backing off of an earlier threat of a 50% levy.
As some Canadian provinces began pulling U.S. liquor brands from government-run stores and replacing bottles with "Buy Canadian Instead" signs, the CEO of the Kentucky-based Brown-Forman, which makes Jack Daniel's, called the boycott "frustrating."
"That's worse than a tariff because it's literally taking your sales away," Whiting said on an earnings call last week.
Nick Talley, a physician-scientist in New South Wales, Australia, said Trump "presumably... thought everyone would just bow down" after he imposed tariffs and raised prices for consumers around the world.
Danish grocery company Salling Group has also taken action to oppose Trump's threat to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Danish kingdom.
The company is still carrying U.S.-made products but is marking European-made goods with a black star to identify them for shoppers.
A Verian/SVT survey in Sweden on Tuesday found that "the U.S.'s actions in world politics... have led many Swedes to hesitate in the face of American products."
Twenty-nine percent of Swedish residents said they had refrained from buying U.S. goods in the last month amid Trump's trade war, his temporary suspension of aid to Ukraine after publicly berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House earlier this month, and Musk's meddling in European politics by expressing support for British right-wing extremist Tommy Robinson and German political party Alternative for Germany, which has embraced Nazi slogans and came in second in last month's elections.
Norwegian fuel company Haltbakk urged "all Norwegians and Europeans" to join in boycotting the U.S. after the confrontation between Trump and Zelenskyy, which the firm called "the biggest shit show ever presented 'live on TV' by the current American president and his vice president."
The company has provided fuel to U.S. ships in Norwegian ports but said it would no longer do so as the international community expressed shock over Trump's treatment of Zelenskyy and Ukrainian victims of Russia's invasion.
Meanwhile, European consumers have continued to make their views on Musk—a "special government employee" of Trump's who has spearheaded the slashing of federal jobs and spending and threatened to cut $700 billion from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—by refusing to buy Tesla cars.
February sales were down 76% in Germany, 53% in Portugal, 55% in Italy, and 48% in Norway and Denmark—contributing the company's plummeting share price and loss of $800 billion in market cap.
Trump offered to buy a Tesla before staging a showing of five of the cars at the White House Tuesday, claiming American consumers are "illegally" boycotting the company, but as Channel 4 in the U.K. reported, "the company will have to find a lot more buyers to make up for a sharp decline in sales across Europe" as both boycotts and protests at Tesla dealerships spread.
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