The most tone-deaf moment in recent politics arrived last week. In a podcast interview, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — worth over $1 billion — said of old people on Social Security, “If Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month, my 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t complain. She’d think something got messed up and she’d get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming and yelling. Anybody who knows payments knows you stop the checks, and whoever screams is the one stealing.”
Excuse me? Did he just say that anyone complaining about not getting their check is likely a thief? That the administration’s true aim is to use baseless claims of fraud to break apart Social Security?
Social Security is arguably the most successful anti-poverty program in American history. Before President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law in 1935, more than 50 percent of seniors lived in poverty. Today, that number is about 10 percent.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Social Security is the only thing keeping 22 million adults and children above the poverty line. The center also notes that nearly 6 million of its beneficiaries are under age 65 and nearly 1 million are children.
Yet the administration continues undermining the program in plain sight.
As former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley recently wrote on X, “The Musk/Trump co-presidency has already taken 90 percent of the actions necessary to drive Social Security into a total system collapse.”
A similar, fact-based assessment of ongoing attacks against Social Security comes from the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “[Social Security] is already at its lowest staffing level in decades,” Schumer said. “And now Trump and Musk’s [Department of Government Efficiency] is laying off more than 7,000 Social Security workers. These are the people who help seniors navigate their benefits. Without them, seniors are left in the dark.”
In the past, Social Security was viewed as political kryptonite for any politician imitating Superman and flying at the program in the name of lowering government spending. The reason is that seniors are the most reliable voting bloc in the country, and AARP remains one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington.
After winning reelection, President George W. Bush declared he would spend political capital trying to privatize Social Security. Bush was forced to abandon the project, and just a few years later, the 2008 financial collapse vindicated those who had resisted gambling retirement on the stock market.
When he was House Budget Committee Chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) tried to channel Tea Party anger at health care reform into cuts on Social Security and Medicare. Those proposed budget reductions went nowhere.
Now the assault on this program has taken on new life under Trump. He is making wild claims that thieves, “several hundred people older than 220,” and one aged 360 years, are getting Social Security checks –— an amazing report when the country is not even 300 years old.
But the real tragedy is this: The Social Security trust fund is in trouble without the traps being laid by the Trump team.
In the near future, the system is projected to go insolvent. The reason is that Americans are living longer, and the cost of living continues to rise. The solution is not to destroy the program — it’s to strengthen it. The obvious answer is to have higher-income Americans continue paying into the Social Security system beyond the current income cutoff point of just under $200,000.
Another obvious answer is to raise the retirement age, since people are living longer.
The poet Maya Angelou once famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
In the political world, the far right has been saying for a long time that Social Security is on its kill list. They said much the same about ending constitutionally protected rights to abortion. They succeeded in 2022 with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.
Similarly, the far right has long pushed to open the door to more dark money from rich donors and corporations seeking lower taxes and less regulation of industry. In 2010, they got a win when the high court equated big political spending with free speech.
Now, the president’s top financial supporter has near-total control of the federal government — while the president films endorsements for his car company on the White House lawn.
And if you read about Project 2025, you know the right wing has long wanted to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. Their goal seems to be to free state and local officials from federal penalties for not properly educating disabled children, poor children and minority children. Just last week, Trump signed an executive order to break apart the department.
Now, the movement has set its sights on its biggest dream: dismantling Social Security – its “Moby Dick” to their Captain Ahab.
When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton supposedly replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” Social Security is a big vault of money — and Republicans want to empty it to pay for extending the Trump tax cuts for billionaires like Trump, Musk and Lutnick.
This brings me back to Maya Angelou. The far-right agenda has been saying it for a long time. Their goal is to end Social Security. Open your ears to their increasingly loud attacks.
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book “New Prize for these Eyes: the Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement.”
