During a press briefing on Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke about Trump's nominee to lead the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano.
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00:00Thank you, everybody. It's great to see my colleagues here, Senator Wyden, Senator Van
00:05Holland. We just heard from Senator Warren and, of course, Martin O'Malley, our most recent Senate
00:12confirmed Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. And let me talk about that for a
00:17minute. I knew Frank Bisognano when he was in New York. He was known then, as he should be known now,
00:24as Mr. Slash and Burn. When a company wanted to just fire people mercilessly, they wanted to
00:31squeeze to death anything that went on there, they hired Bisognano. He was Mr. Slash and Burn.
00:40So can you imagine putting this man, who has no experience with Social Security, but who has
00:46experience in cutting the daylights of any organization that he becomes part of, being
00:52the commissioner? Shame, shame, shame, shame. And the bottom line is here that Bisognano would be
01:04like putting, you know, a fox in the hen house. You know, the Republicans have found many ways.
01:10They know how popular Social Security is. And so they don't say they're going to kill it. They want
01:18to strangle it. That's what they want to do. It's death by another means. And they want to strangle
01:24it by closing offices, by cutting employees, by making sure the phone lines don't get answered.
01:30They're making sure the emails are shut off. And worst of all, by putting a guy like Bisognano in
01:35charge. It is just a disgrace. And we are going to do everything. This is the Social Security until
01:42recently was sort of the it was the crowning achievement of government across the board.
01:47Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives. The bottom line is that everyone loved Social
01:54Security. It was one of the hallmarks of one of the greatest things that government can ever do.
01:59And the fact that they're trying to attack it. You know, George Bush tried in 2005 and Nancy Pelosi
02:04and Harry Reid and I and a group of others fought back and we won. We're going to fight back this time
02:11and we are going to win. Social Security is sacred. How about Elon Musk, Mr. Doge,
02:19saying that it's a Ponzi scheme? Tell that to the person who needs that $1,100
02:25check each month to pay for their food or their prescription drugs that might save their lives.
02:31And how about Howard Lutnik? Howard Lutnik says, well, my mother-in-law wouldn't miss a check. Well,
02:38I went to a big Social Security rally. I said, how many of you have billionaire son-in-laws
02:43would make sure you're okay if you didn't miss a check?
02:48These billionaires are in their own bubble. They don't give a they don't give a hoot
02:55or something else. They don't give a hoot about people who who struggle, people who need Social
03:04Security to just live. All they care about is cutting taxes for themselves and their billionaire
03:12buddies. There is nothing more disgraceful than cutting Social Security to give taxes to the
03:17billionaire buddies. So we're going to fight it in every way that we can and we are going to win.
03:22So thank you for being here. Thank you AFT and Social Security Works for putting this together.