Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency of the Department of the Treasury Relating

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, the Senate will soon vote on Frank Bisignano to serve as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration. I came to the floor last week to lay out my concerns surrounding the confirmation process for Mr. Bisignano.

This nominee lied multiple times to myself, my staff, and members of the Finance Committee. He directly contradicted a confidential whistleblower report that I received detailing his close ties to DOGE and its ongoing operations at Social Security. When pressed on it during his confirmation hearing, he lied to me and the committee saying he had no direct involvement with DOGE.

He has made a very lucrative career out of being the guy who swoops into failing businesses, guts them from the inside out, and moves on to the next target. This is not someone nominated because of his plans to bolster customer service and make it easier for seniors to access their hard-earned benefits or strengthen the Social Security guarantee.

He was nominated because Donald Trump hopes he will apply the same approach to Social Security and upend life for millions of seniors and people with disabilities as we know it. The administration is already weaponizing Social Security to go after immigrants and other groups it wants to target, all under the guise of rooting out fraud and abuse.

Social Security is a lifeline to millions of seniors and Americans with disabilities. A missed Social Security check can be the difference between seniors being able to afford rent, groceries, or medications. But Donald Trump and the inner circle are so out of touch, they think that most Americans won't even notice if they start missing their checks.

In March, Commerce Secretary and billionaire Howard Lutnick mused that his mother-in-law wouldn't complain if she missed a Social Security check. I wouldn't expect the mother-in-law of a billionaire to complain either, but for the rest of America's seniors who aren't lucky enough to have a billionaire son-in-law, a missed Social Security check will be the difference between being able to put food on the table, keep a roof over their head, and get their prescriptions at the pharmacy.

Mr. Lutnick went on to say that anybody who did complain about a missed Social Security payment is a fraudster. That is some top-tier gaslighting if I have ever heard it. Lay the groundwork for Americans to miss their checks, and when they do, immediately write off anybody that complains as a fraud. The Trump administration is doing its best to get people used to the idea of seniors missing checks.

Their strategy here is death by a thousand cuts. First, they cut off customer service. Then they close field offices and lay off staff. Then they farm out customer service operations to private equity firms that employ AI chatbots in foreign call centers in an effort to plunge America's elderly into a maze of redtape designed to keep them from getting what are earned benefits. It is also a pathway to privatization.

None of us have to look hard to see the damage private equity has brought to nearly every corner of industry and business. Take healthcare, for example. The firms are gobbling up medical practices and hospitals in hopes of turning a profit. They have turned the simplest task of scheduling a doctor's appointment into an Olympic sport, forcing patients to navigate phone trees or automated online systems that don't offer any real help.

And if patients need to get lifesaving treatment, health insurers like UnitedHealth deploy AI programs to deny claims left and right. But this is exactly what Trump is hoping Mr. Bisignano is going to do: gut Social Security from the inside out. Then you can sell the parts off to the highest private equity bidder and make it harder for everybody to get their money. The goal is to break the system so thoroughly that Americans buy in, and they can privatize the system entirely.

Everything the Trump administration is doing is part of an agenda that is going to make families poorer, sicker, and less safe than ever before. It is not an exaggeration to say that the country is at a turning point. At no time during the history of Social Security have we come this close to the possibility of seniors and people with disabilities actually missing their Social Security checks.

Social Security is money that Americans pay from each paycheck. So when seniors and people with disabilities start missing Social Security checks, that is DOGE and Elon Musk stealing your hard-earned money.

By confirming Mr. Bisignano, the Senate will be signing a death sentence to Social Security as we know it today. Republicans will be responsible when your grandma misses her Social Security check and can't pay her month's rent.

Republicans will be responsible when your aunt living in rural Oregon can't get the help she needs because the phone lines have been shut off, and her closest field office was shut down.

Republicans will be responsible when an entire generation of seniors and disabled Americans are left unable to afford basic necessities.

At a time when costs are rising, the Federal Government ought to be focused on cutting costs and helping families and seniors afford the cost of living.

Instead, it sure looks to me like Republicans are poised to pass another bailout for billionaires and corporations while simultaneously working to dismantle the Federal programs and resources that Americans rely on. That is the Republican agenda in a nutshell, and every single Member of this body that votes to confirm this nominee is going to own the consequences.

Mr. Bisignano is unfit to be the steward of Americans' hard-earned Social Security benefits. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote no on his nomination.

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