For proponents of the Social Security system, Donald Trump’s second term as president has been exceedingly difficult. As the Republican administration imposed significant personnel cuts and closed Social Security offices, The New York Times reported last month on the intensifying “mess” within the system.
The Washington Post reported a day earlier that retirees and disabled people are “facing chronic website outages and other access problems.” The Wall Street Journal added that people who show up at Social Security offices are confronting multi-hour waits.
It doesn’t help that the administration is misusing the Social Security system in legally dubious ways; Elon Musk is slamming Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme”; and JD Vance is using his vice presidential platform to peddle discredited claims about the system.
Trump might’ve promised voters that Social Security would go untouched if he returned to the White House, but it’s already clear that the Republican White House has destabilized the system to a degree without modern precedent.
It was against this backdrop that the GOP-led Senate confirmed a new commissioner of the Social Security Administration. NBC News reported:
The Senate has voted to confirm Frank Bisignano to be the commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Democrats have called Bisignano, a Wall Street veteran who is the chairman and CEO of the payment processing company Fiserv, “Mr. Slash and Burn,” as wide-sweeping DOGE cuts to the SSA have caused turmoil at the agency.
The final tally in the Senate was 53-47, falling neatly along party lines: Literally every Republican in the chamber voted to confirm Bisignano, and literally every Democratic senator voted against him.
His opponents had plenty to work with. In fact, as recently as February, in an interview with CNBC, Bisignano described himself as “fundamentally a DOGE person,” which were four words Democrats seized on throughout the confirmation process.
To be fair, Bisignano later took steps to distance himself from DOGE-imposed changes at the Social Security Administration, though as the Times reported, Democrats had reason to be skeptical.
That characterization was challenged at the hearing by Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who produced a statement that he said was from a whistle-blower. Mr. Wyden, citing the letter, said that Mr. Bisignano had personally intervened to get key DOGE officials involved at the agency, including one who was approved in the middle of the night.
Republicans quickly shrugged off the allegations from Wyden and the unidentified whistleblower. Shortly before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described Bisignano as “the last person Americans should entrust with their Social Security benefits.” The New York Democrat added, “Today, Republicans have a choice: Vote against Bisignano and stop the attacks on Social Security, or vote yes and be complicit in the dismantling of Social Security. It should be a no-brainer. … If Mr. Bisignano is confirmed, Senate Republicans will own all of the chaos he creates at the Social Security Administration.” Soon after, 53 GOP senators, including those occasionally described as “moderates,” backed Bisignano anyway. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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