Update (6:00 PM ET): During a press conference on Tuesday, President Trump revealed some of the massive waste, fraud, and abuse that Elon Musk’s team found in DOGE, including thousands of Social Security recipients listed as more than 200 years old, to which Musk joked, “Maybe Twilight is real and a lot of vampires are collecting Social Security.”
Listen to Trump go into detail about other terrible things DOGE has found:
Crazy!
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Acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Michelle King resigned on Sunday after a disagreement with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) over access to sensitive government documents.
On the same day, Musk revealed what he said could be “the biggest scam in US history,” in which millions of “people” over 100 years old are collecting payments.
King, who worked for the agency for over 30 years, resigned from his position this weekend after refusing to give DOGE employees access to sensitive information, such as fraudulent payments made to vampires, with at least one recipient older than the US itself.
This, of course, is the exact reason why quarry workers shouldn’t be holding the keys to the castle with the town’s new sheriff.
According to the Washington Post, administration officials have also been skeptical of career staffers’ efforts to protect federal data, arguing that political figures should also have access to it, especially if necessary to root out wasteful or erroneous spending.
Following King’s departure, President Donald Trump appointed Leland Dudek, who is in charge of the Social Security Administration’s anti-fraud office, as acting commissioner while the Senate vets Trump nominee Frank Bisignano. Dudek had previously posted positive remarks on social media about DOGE’s efforts to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse across the U.S. government.
According to WaPo, Trump’s selection of Dudek to King’s position came ahead of dozens of other top executives who were high on the agency’s leadership succession list, causing uproar in and around the agency.
“At this rate, they’re going to break it. And they’re going to break it fast, and benefits are going to be cut off,” said former Biden Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland.
“It’s unfortunate that 120 executives are ignoring the chilling effect of this,” O’Malley continued. “The appointment of an acting commissioner who is not a senior executive sends a message that professionals should leave this troubled public agency.”
Yes, that’s the point.
On Monday night, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she had been battling “fake news reporters” who were trying to “scare people” about Social Security payments.
DOGE’s access to documents across the federal government has sparked controversy with senior officials at various agencies. Perhaps most notably, the highest-ranking civil servant at the U.S. Treasury Department resigned after refusing to grant Musk’s team access to the Office of the Budget Service, which manages over $5 trillion in annual payments.
On Sunday, the Post reported that DOGE is seeking access to a heavily guarded IRS system that contains detailed information about every taxpayer, business, and nonprofit in the country. For some reason, Democrats seem to be the only ones upset about this.
And again, that’s the point.
