Senator Bernie Sanders has predicted that Republicans, under President Donald Trump, will move to privatize Social Security and cut benefits to millions of vulnerable Americans.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the White House via email on Monday night.
Why It Matters
The future of programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare have been a hot topic of debate since Trump returned to the White House in January while vowing to dramatically slash federal spending with help from Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Although Trump and Republicans in Congress have promised to leave federal social welfare programs intact, critics have dismissed GOP suggestions that only “fraud, waste and abuse” will be cut and raised alarm bells for seniors and those with disabilities who rely on Social Security and other programs.
Sanders, the progressive independent from Vermont who ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, has been a leading critic of the Trump administration’s moves to dismantle federal agencies and potentially paralyze social programs.
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What To Know
During a Fox Business interview on Monday, Musk denounced “entitlement spending”—expenditures on programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare—as “the big one to eliminate,” while claiming without evidence that Democrats use the programs to “attract and retain illegal immigrants” before “turning them into voters.”
After being asked about Musk’s remarks during an interview with CNN‘s Anderson Cooper later on Monday night, Sanders called reported plans to lay off half the Social Security workforce “a disaster” and suggested that Republicans have launched a disinformation campaign to put the program into the hands of private investors.
“If you ask me, I think this is a prelude not only to cutting benefits, but to privatizing Social Security itself,” Sanders said. “I think that’s in the back of their mind. If you make the system dysfunctional, why would anybody want to support it?”
“So, why do you lie so much about Social Security?” he continued. “Why do you make it look like it’s a broken, dysfunctional system? The reason is to get people to lose faith in the system, and then you can give it over to Wall Street. That’s my view.”
What People Are Saying
Trump promising to keep Social Security intact unless there is “fraud or something” during a Fox News interview last month: “Look, Social Security won’t be touched, other than if there’s fraud or something. It’s going to be strengthened. But it won’t be touched.”
Former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley, during an interview with MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on Monday: “They are driving people out, employees, out of Social Security as fast as they possibly can … I truly believe that they are trying to crater this agency, and that they are driving it to a total system collapse. That is going to happen a lot sooner rather than later …
They are trying to break this agency in order to turn the public against it, so they can privatize it, liquidate it and steal at least a portion or all of the $2.7 trillion that’s in the trust fund. People need to rise up.”
What Happens Next
The Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts, particularly those targeting social programs, will likely continue to face heavy criticism from Sanders and other advocates of the programs.