During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) spoke about President Trump's nominee to lead the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to reject Frank Bisignano's nomination to be the commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
00:12The first hundred days of Donald Trump's second term have been filled with chaos and cruelty that has reached into every corner of American life.
00:23But perhaps no development has been as alarming to the elderly and other concerned Americans as the attacks of the Trump administration on Social Security.
00:38Social Security has long been considered a third rail of American politics.
00:42It is simply too important to American workers who have spent their lives paying into the program out of every paycheck for politicians to idly propose major changes that would harm the earned benefits of Americans.
01:01And yet Donald Trump and his billionaire allies have decided they are simply immune to the concerns of American citizens.
01:13They're about to find out just how wrong they are.
01:17Over the past several months, the Trump administration has attacked nearly every aspect of Social Security.
01:25First, it was American-sensitive private information protected by Social Security.
01:33Then it was scheduling field offices for closure across the country.
01:40Then it was eliminating phone service for many Social Security claims.
01:45Worst of all, there is a widespread view among Donald Trump's top lieutenants, from Elon Musk to Howard Lutnick, that Social Security is just chock full of fraudsters.
02:03The whiplash caused day by day and all the disruption and chaos has resulted in bedlam at Social Security.
02:11And in my view, it has put the earned benefits of millions of Americans in jeopardy.
02:20Mr. President, I wish I could stand in the Senate today and say, the cavalry is coming.
02:28The chaos will soon be over.
02:32But I'm afraid that's not the case.
02:34If Frank Bisignano is confirmed, he's going to bring more chaos, lies, and callous disregard for Americans who count on Social Security that the Trump administration has brought to the agency through Doge.
02:52That was front and center when the nominee came before the Finance Committee in March.
02:57Just before the hearing, Mr. President, I received a very valuable statement from a whistleblower, a former senior official at Social Security.
03:07The whistleblower stated that Mr. Bisignano had been deeply involved in the Doge chaos at Social Security.
03:14The whistleblower said, and I quote, I'm concerned that the president's nominee to be commissioner of Social Security, Frank Bisignano, will not temper the crisis, but will bolster it.
03:30The allegations presented by the whistleblower center around Elon Musk's Doge and their attempts to access Social Security databases that hold reams of sensitive personal information of every single American.
03:48These databases, Mr. President, represent the Fort Knox of Americans' personal lives.
03:57Bank account numbers, bank account numbers, home addresses, work history, salaries, medical records.
04:04Doge's cronies wanted unfettered access to the database.
04:10They're still fighting for that as we speak after they've been blocked in court.
04:17According to the whistleblower, Mr. Bisignano personally appointed his Wall Street friend, Michael Russo,
04:23to be the leader of the Doge team at Social Security.
04:28According to the Washington Post, which independently verified, Mr. President, the whistleblower's account,
04:36and I'll quote here,
04:37After Russo had trouble persuading the career staff to expedite the hiring of a Doge software engineer named Akash Boba,
04:49Mr. Bisignano personally intervened to instruct Social Security staff to onboard Mr. Boba
04:57and give him immediate access to the agency's private data systems.
05:03Mr. Bisignano did not address what role he may have had in helping Mr. Boba gain access.
05:09Boba and Russo did not respond to requests for comment.
05:14That's a direct quote from the Washington Post newspaper.
05:18My view is this is a remarkable statement, Mr. President, that ought to alarm all Americans.
05:24I asked Mr. Bisignano about his affiliations with Doge before, during, and after his hearing,
05:34each time he disavowed the whistleblower's challenge.
05:38I viewed that moment as an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to come together,
05:44as we've done so often on a bipartisan basis,
05:47and get to the bottom of this before the Finance Committee reported the nominee to the full Senate.
05:52Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues didn't see it that way.
05:58I started by asking the chairman of the Finance Committee for a bipartisan meeting with this whistleblower
06:04to evaluate their claims and seek additional evidence to determine if the nominee lied to members of the committee.
06:12The majority refused to hold that meeting or postpone the vote
06:16unless we agreed to hand over any information received from the whistleblower
06:23directly to the nominee in the Trump administration.
06:28Mr. President, I just want to be clear on this point.
06:32This is a violation of Whistleblowing 101.
06:36That's because it allows the government to identify the individual blowing the whistle
06:41through a process of elimination.
06:44It jeopardizes the whistleblower's anonymity and safety,
06:48and I'm going to have no part of that as the co-chair of the Whistleblower Caucus
06:53with my friend, Senator Grassley.
06:55There's a long bipartisan tradition in the Senate of treating whistleblowers
06:58with great respect and deep care.
07:02I'm here to warn America now about a dangerous erosion of congressional oversight
07:09that will have a chilling effect on public servants
07:12who are thinking about coming forward and blowing the whistle
07:14when government agencies are acting against the interests of the Americans they serve.
07:20Mr. President, I fear that the events that I have just described
07:24are going to cause public servants who want to do the right thing
07:27to put away their whistles.
07:31That is bad for good government.
07:33It's bad for congressional oversight of laws we delegated to the executive branch
07:36through our constitutional authority,
07:39and it is bad for Americans who expect their government
07:41to be responsive and transparent.
07:44The double whammy of disrespect for Social Security
07:48and the Americans who count on its earned benefits,
07:50along with the culture of secrecy and lies that exist
07:53throughout the Trump administration,
07:55is a bad omen for what's ahead for Social Security.
08:01Even if the Republican Party decides to pretend none of this is happening,
08:05Americans from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine,
08:09all of them are speaking out literally this weekend.
08:13All Americans should be concerned that a nominee for a position of public trust
08:17like Commissioner of Social Security
08:19is accused of lying about his actions at the agency,
08:22and that effort to bring this important information to light
08:27is now being thwarted.
08:29If Mr. Bisignano can get away with lying before he's even in place as commissioner,
08:39who knows what else he'll be able to get away with once he's in office.
08:43He could lie by denying any American who paid their Social Security taxes
08:47the benefits they've earned claiming some phony pretense.
08:51He could lie about how sensitive personal information is being mishandled
08:56or worse, exploited for commercial use.
09:00I'll close with this, Mr. President.
09:03I'm going to have a lot more to say about the nominee
09:05and the Trump administration's disastrous record on Social Security.
09:10Today, I urge my colleagues to vote no on the cloture vote coming up
09:17to bring some sanity back to Social Security
09:19and, in my view, safeguard the Senate's long and bipartisan tradition
09:26as a safe haven for government whistleblowers who want to speak truth to power.
09:30Mr. President, I yield the floor.