Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on Howard Lutnick's comments on Social Security

Donald Trump’s Commerce Secretary is facing backlash for his “cavalier” comments regarding Social Security. 

Social Security employees have been warning that the Trump administration’s plan to cut staff will result in delayed benefit cheque. 

Secretary Howard Lutnick says that anyone who complains about a missed Social Security cheque is a fraudster. 

This is despite 40% of all seniors living alone being entirely reliant on the payment – some 40 million people.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stay tired.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Richard Arnold, good Monday morning to you.

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Good morning, my tensions and Lucknik.

Speaker 3 (00:03):
Where are we at?

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Yeah, the system of old age pensions here is very
much in the spotlight right now. This is money that
is taken from everyone's wages and put into a separate
fund to pay Social Security checks, as they call them.
It was put into effect by Roosevelt in the nineteen thirties,
so I've been around for a long long while. Sort
of a fundamental aspect of US governance. The role of

(00:26):
the administration was to bank the money and send out
pension payments. Sadly, governments from both parties took some of
the money and spent it on other things. So the
fund has some issues now into Elon Musk, who calls
the system a Ponzi scheme, which it certainly is not.
It's taxed by our money. Nothing to do with Musk
and whatever he might want to spend it on. And
now Trump's Commerce secretary how it, Lutnek says, what does

(00:48):
it matter if old folks don't get their checks on time?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Let's say sold Security didn't send out their checks this month.
My mother in law whose name four, she wouldn't call
and complain. She just wouldn't. She thinks something got messed
up and she'll get it next one h A fraudster
always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complain.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
What the hell is wrong with this guy in the
idiot interview? You didn't get a promise pension payment? Well,
you know, get some cash from you x woll Street
to invest the son because anyone who complains would be
a criminal, right Fumer. Commissioner of Social Security Martin Imelli
says this is despicable because she says.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Forty percent of all seniors living alone depend entirely upon
Social Security.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, we're talking about forty million people. Amelie, a Democrat.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Says people should be rightly outraged. They have worked their
whole lives for these benefits. They have worked over generations
to make sure that they could be there for their
own kids and grandkids. And what's going on right now
at Social Security is absolutely appalled.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, what's going on? Here's the Dalon Mosque. Minions have
announced plans to fire thousands of people who work at
Social Security and also to close field offices where elderly
people might have been taking their concerns so you know,
they might have to travel a bit further, lot further.
Who knows all this? While Trump's acting head of Social
Security threatened the other day to shut down the entire
Social Security administration, then a couple of days on said, ah,

(02:19):
didn't mean it, folks, because after all, if you don't
get a pension check, Mike, what's the worry? What's it matter?

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Where are we at with the Dems? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Better late than ever. The top Democrat in the Senate,
Chuck Schumer, is trying to hit back against complaints within
his own party, mostly that Democrats are weak in responding
to the Trump administration. That have been calls for human
to quit, he says today, not quitting. He is also
responding belatedly to those who slammed him for signing on
to that temporary debt increase which prevented the government shut down.
The other day. A number of Dems said they should

(02:48):
not have cooperated with Republicans and keeping the government open
with a Continuing Resolution CR in which the Dems had
no input but their votes were needed to get it pass. Well,
Schumer now is explaining his worries a bit more or
the Trump and Musk would have taken charge completely and
could have kept the government closed for months.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Who determines how long the shutdown would last. Only those
evil people at the top of the executive branch in
the Trump administration. And one Senator Republican told a Democratic
senator colleague of mine, and this guy is close. This
Republican senator is close to the dojemask people. They would
keep the government shutdown for six months, nine months a

(03:27):
year till everyone was furloughed.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
So that's his take. Meantime, left wing lives Senator Bernie
Sanders and Alexandria Casio Cootis have been out on the
campaign trial doing rallies in Republican red states and drawing
just big numbers. Bernie Sanders just had some thirty thousand
people attending an event in Denver, thirty thousand. That is
more than he ever drew when he was actually running
for president. Well, right, might catch up Winsday Richard Donald slitside.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
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