Rachel Maddow ‘Can’t Bear to Watch’ Trump’s Social Security Cuts: ‘A Fraudster Always Makes the Loudest Noise’ | Video

Rachel Maddow had a strong warning in the wake of Donald Trump’s planned cuts to the Social Security Administration and offices around the United States, which include the firing of at least 12% of the SSA’s staff.

“My whole adult life, we have thought of attacking Social Security as the third rail of American politics,” Maddow said on her show Friday night. “You touch it, and it is a guaranteed political death. Well, we are now witnessing the strongest test we’ve ever had of that aphorism … as Donald Trump grabs that third rail firmly and unmistakably, Trump has announced plans to fire thousands of people who work at the Social Security Administration, more than 12% of its staff. He has released plans to shut down dozens of local Social Security offices across the country.”

In an interview with the “All-In” podcast released Friday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed so-called “fraudsters” were fleecing the Social Security system. He told the hosts the United States government doesn’t “have to take one penny from someone who deserves Social Security, not one penny for someone who deserves Medicaid, Medicare.”

“What we have to do is stop sending money to someone who’s not hurt, who’s on disability for 50 years,” he added. “It’s ridiculous, and they have another job.”

Lutnick also said that if his 94-year-old mother-in-law did not receive her own Social Security check this month, “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 added.

“I feel like in any other moment, this would have been wallpaper all over the American media,” Maddow told viewers. “But this statement today from Donald Trump’s commerce secretary about what Trump is doing to Social Security, this tape is such a political disaster. I feel like I almost have to close my eyes because I can’t bear to watch it.”

The result of the cuts will be that “millions more elderly people and people with disabilities will be forced to somehow make their way physically to a Social Security office in person, if they can find one, because they’re closing lots of offices, because they will need to get help in person from a Social Security staffer, provided they can find one who hasn’t been fired,” Maddow also explained. “Making grandma wait in new lines is not nice, right?”

She also stated that the move is a response to a federal judge’s ruling Thursday that blocked DOGE from accesssing the Social Security files of millions of Amerians. Maryland’s U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander wrote, “The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion.”

“To be sure, rooting out possible fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the SSA is in the public interest. But, that does not mean that the government can flout the law to do so,” Hollander added.

Watch the segment in the video above.

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