Howard Lutnick, President Donald Trump’s Commerce Secretary and a billionaire donor, stirred controversy with comments about Social Security during a podcast appearance on Friday.
Lutnick suggested that seniors wouldn’t be too concerned if they missed a Social Security payment for a month.
“Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, wouldn’t call and complain. She’d just assume something got messed up and that it’ll come next month,”
Lutnick said on the “All-In” podcast. Lutnick, whose net worth is estimated at $1.5 billion, argued that stopping payments could help expose fraud in the system.
“A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling, and complaining,” he claimed. “The easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen because whoever screams is the one stealing.
My mother-in-law wouldn’t call me. Come on, your mother — 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds — they trust the government.”
Lutnick’s remarks come as a Bankrate survey from November revealed that 77% of current retirees rely on Social Security to cover essential expenses, while only 15% say they aren’t dependent on it at all.
His comments also follow a statement from Leland Dudek, the temporary director of the Social Security Administration, who warned that agency operations could be severely disrupted by a court blocking the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive databases. Dudek suggested that the disruption could lead to halted payments for 70 million Americans.
Lutnick’s out-of-touch statements on Social Security follow another misstep earlier in the week. During a Fox News appearance on Wednesday, he encouraged Americans to invest in Tesla, claiming its stock would “never be this cheap again,” despite the company’s shares having lost nearly half their value this year.
Tesla’s stock fell another 1.7% the day after his remarks. “I mean, who wouldn’t invest in Elon Musk?” Lutnick said, defending Trump’s advisor and the ongoing cuts to federal programs.
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