Make No Mistake: Trump and Musk are Going After Social Security

Breaking the agency is an effort to till the ground for future cuts to Social Security

In all three of his presidential campaigns, Donald Trump ran putatively to the Left of his party on Social Security. Where previous Republicans talked about privatization and raising the retirement age, Trump pledged to protect Social Security at all costs. In the 2024 primary, he destroyed the once-promising (but perhaps always doomed) candidacy of Ron DeSantis by attacking him for wanting to cut Social Security.

It was all bullshit.

Trump, Elon Musk, the DOGE-bags,and the billionaires in Trump’s Cabinet are coming for your Social Security. They may not be doing it in the traditional ways of George W. Bush and Paul Ryan, but make no mistake; they are trying to destroy Social Security.

I know Trump and his minions will deny this til the cows come home, but they are also lawyers. When he ran in 2016, Trump pledged to protect Social Security and Medicare but then included cuts to those programs in every budget during his first term.

So maybe, we shouldn’t be so quick to take their word for it.

This post is part of a series about the various strategies and tactics Democrats — from leadership down to activists — can employ to make Trump more unpopular. Sign up here if you want to follow along and participate in the conversation.

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The Evidence

Trump plans to take down Social Security. This is not some secret I discovered by poring through documents, nor was it communicated to me by a member of the Deep State too burrowed into the government yet to be fired Elon Musk. All of the evidence is right there in the open:

1. Elon Musk, the most powerful unelected bureaucrat and the person deciding which government programs survive, went on Joe Rogan’s podcast and called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme;”

2. The Trump Administration plans to lay off about half of the Social Security Administration’s workforce which would make it harder to deliver benefits on time and pay out disability claims;

3. The DOGE Commission plans to close 47 local Social Security offices. These offices are where many Americans apply for benefits or go to resolve issues;

4. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared on the All In podcast hosted by billionaires. Lutnick, a billionaire himself, said if Social Security “Didn’t send out their checks this month… my mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain… She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining.” He’s a billionaire talking to other billionaires, claiming that missing a Social Security wouldn’t be a big deal;

5. Trump and Musk built a massive disinformation campaign to portray Social Security as rife with waste and abuse. During the State of the Union, he went on a long rant claiming massive fraud, but the information he laid out had already been proven false. Republicans love to play the fraud card right before they try to cut benefits; and

6. Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Agency, recently threatened to shut down the whole agency — yes, stop Social Security — if a judge wouldn’t grant the DOGE team access to highly confidential information.

Taken together, these data points are clear evidence of an administration at war with Social Security.

None of this is surprising; the Republicans aimed to destroy the program from day one.

Trump won’t propose a big Social Security privatization plan. Congressional Republicans won’t take a vote to cut benefits or raise the retirement age. Instead, Trump and Musk intend to disable the program from the inside. They are attempting to make Social Security seem so broken and rife with fraud that it should be dismantled. And it’s workin:

As Jeff Stein wrote in the Washington Post:

The federal agency that delivers $1.5 trillion a year in earned benefits to 73 million retired workers, their survivors and poor and disabled Americans is engulfed in crisis — further undermining its ability to provide reliable and quick service to vulnerable customers, according to internal documents and more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, customers and others who interact with Social Security.

Democrats Should Pick This Fight

Social Security is often referred to as the “third rail of American politics.” Americans do not want anyone messing around with their Social Security. A Data for Progress poll found that 92% of voters oppose cutting Social Security to reduce the national debt; and six in ten voters believe benefits should be increased.

Social Security cuts are people’s top concern about Elon Musk and DOGE in a recent poll from Blueprint, with 64% reporting concern about possible cuts.

This is an urgent fight. Democrats created Social Security and we have continued to defend it. Social Security is at the core of the Democratic identity, but we have lost critical ground to Trump. A post-election report from Blue Rose Research found that 2024 voters trust Trump more than Democrats on Social Security.

This finding should alarm every person working in Democratic politics. If we lose Social Security, we lose full control of our brand. We must find the tallest mountain top and start screaming. This is a winnable fight, but we have to start understanding and educating on what Trump is really up to.