The Rachel Maddow Show
Outrage and exposure halts Trump's plans for Social Security service cuts
Thu, 13 Mar 2025
Rachel Maddow shares video of Rep. John Larson channeling the outrage of his constituents at the anticipation that Donald Trump's top donor, Elon Musk, is intending to destroy Social Security in order to privatize it. The Washington Post reported early Wednesday that Musk was planning cuts to Social Security's telephone customer service, but by the end of the day those plans had been cancelled. Between the public outcry and the exposure in the media, the pushback on Social Security cuts appears to have worked.
Chapter 1: Who is Congressman John Larson and why is he significant?
Congressman John Larson represents Hartford, Connecticut. And he's an old guy, and I say that with affection. He's in his mid to late 70s. He's held this seat in Congress from Connecticut for more than 25 years. And he may look familiar to you. He may not. He's not one of the more famous longtime members of Congress.
Chapter 2: What was the recent health scare involving Rep. John Larson?
That said, if you have seen news about him recently in the past few weeks, it was for a not good reason. There was worrying news about him just about a month ago now. He was speaking on the House floor, and he froze up. He stopped speaking suddenly and awkwardly, and then he seemed to really have a hard time starting up his speech again. He just froze. It was clearly some kind of medical incident.
It was definitely scary to see. He did not pass out or anything. He went to the Capitol physician. They ran some tests on him. His office says the conclusion was that they think basically he just had an adverse reaction to a new medication he had just started. The good news is by later that day, he was back at his office. He was having regular meetings and was apparently OK.
But again, that health scare, that little point of alarm about Congressman John Larson, that was only just about a month ago. That said, here tonight, I'm happy to report that Congressman John Larson is definitely back and at full strength. He has been eating his proverbial Wheaties. He appears to be very hydrated, very energized. And may I suggest you get out of his way. Watch this.
Chapter 3: Why is there outrage over plans to cut Social Security services?
Men and women on this committee are good people. They're honest and caring people. And that's why I do not understand why you would relegate this committee to no longer being of significance and resort to saying you will do whatever Elon Musk and Donald Trump tell you to do. Where's the independence of the committee? Where's the legislature? We're an equal branch of government.
And you start off with a blather? And yet, look at the empty seats here. Where's Elon Musk? I'm sure he's a genius and is a very credible person because of the wealth he's accumulated. But that does not put him above the law or the responsibility to come before this committee and this Congress.
If he's so great, if these plans and all the fraud and abuse that he's found are so eminent, why isn't he here explaining it? You know why. Because he's out to privatize Social Security. He's been on television the last couple of days talking exactly about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and what he intends to do. Privatize it.
The American people, some of them may have been born at night, but not last night. People are aware of this. Every single one of your districts. Now you have someone coming in to privatize a system, something you have longed to do going back to 1982. Because Elon Musk thinks that this is the best thing to do. President Trump has called Social Security a scam.
Elon Musk, as Mr. Neal said, called it a Ponzi scheme. Ask that of the people in your district. Ask that, Mr. Smith, of the more than 198,000 people in your district who rely on Social Security, and you won't even let the person who's planning to privatize it, who's telling the big lie in front of everyone. in bold as he possibly can, saying, this is what we're going to do.
The Congress is in our back pocket. We don't even have to come before them and testify, because we control the House, we control the Senate, and we control the presidency. And it's the tyranny of the executive. It's why these revolutions were first adopted back in 1789, because the founding fathers knew
that the executive branch does not have total authority over the legislature unless you have a willing party that says, no, we're going to do exactly what you tell us to do, Mr. Musk and Mr. President. It doesn't matter to our constituents. It doesn't matter how much money they are not going to receive. We're not even going to tell them the truth about what's going to happen to them.
They administer to over 70 million people in the nation's number one anti-poverty program for the elderly and children. Shame! Shame! Can't bring people in front of this body. If he's right, if they're so good, if they're so just, why aren't they here telling the American people about it? They're not because you know the truth. It's about privatization. I yield back.
That is veteran Democratic Congressman John Larson of Connecticut just ripping the bark off today about Social Security and what Republicans are really doing here. And indeed, as he was ripping that bark off in Congress, look at what the Washington Post was publishing just down the road. Um, quote, social security facing pressure from Doge weighs big cuts to phone service.
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Chapter 4: What was Elon Musk's proposed change to Social Security?
Agency considers ending phone program that is used by millions of elderly and disabled Americans. One gobsmacked Social Security Administration employee told The Post today that this radical change, this radical cut to services that they were moving on in the Trump administration, quote, would be the single largest service disruption in agency history ever.
The single largest service disruption in Social Security ever. Elon Musk's plan for Social Security was to, quote, end telephone service for claims processing, instead directing elderly and disabled people to the Internet and to in-person field offices. Quote, the agency's toll-free number is a mainstay for older customers who do not have online access or who have trouble navigating the Internet.
About 40% of the claims that get made to Social Security are made over the phone, using this phone line that Elon Musk now wants to kill. 40% of the claims at the agency.
And naturally, this move to close the phone line and instead force old people and disabled people to go in-person to in-person field offices, naturally, that comes as Donald Trump is firing 7,000 people who work at Social Security and closing tons of the aforementioned field offices.
President Biden's Social Security Administrator, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, ripped the bark off himself in his comments to The Post on this planned cut. Quote, it would certainly appear, he said, that they're trying to break the capacity of the agency to serve its customers.
And I suppose if they're trying to dismember the agency, liquidate its assets, sell pieces of it to their billionaire friends to run, they have to discredit the agency in the eyes of its customers. And they do that by breaking its ability to serve.
The Post says, quote, the Doge-driven proposal to shift all claims processing online and to in-person offices has spurred pushback internally, employees said, and from outside experts for the same reasons, that it would be likely to imperil millions of Americans' ability to receive their earned benefits. This is what they're doing. This is what's going on. And so this is what happens today.
Congressman John Larson, who I just showed you, screams his freaking head off in Congress about it this morning. Screams at them. And then at noon, the Washington Post publishes this horror movie script about their plan, indeed, to rip the guts out of Social Security, beyond firing everybody, which they're already doing, right?
Beyond closing the field offices, they're now making it so that old and disabled people literally cannot call anyone to find out what's going on. But then you know what happened? they caved. They decided not to do it. Don't let anybody tell you that pushback doesn't work. Don't let anybody tell you that yelling and making a fuss doesn't matter, or that journalism doesn't matter.
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Chapter 5: How did public pushback stop Social Security cuts?
And the resulting eruption scared them and made them not do it. Pushback matters. Exposing what they are doing matters. demanding Republicans fill the chair, show up, invite the witnesses in, let us question people, demanding that Republicans actually answer for what Trump is doing, Republicans actually explain themselves, try to justify what it is he's doing.
It turns out those demands can have an effect, which is why you see people all over the country pushing everywhere to get answers out of these guys.
Central Georgia voters say their congressman does not hold town halls, so they plan to hold one without him.
They plan to gather outside Congressman Austin Scott's Warner Robins office. Hunter King spoke with organizers who say the congressman has not held a public town hall in more than a decade.
Some central Georgia voters say they want to be heard by their congressman.
I can't imagine that he's going to be there. I could be really surprised, but we have a lot of questions for him and that we would like some answers. The fact of the matter is they work for us and we should not have to scream and yell and jump up and down and hold town halls for them on their parking lot in order to get their attention.
Organizers are planning on gathering here at Congressman Scott's office in Warner Robins just outside of the building and holding their own town hall. This will all go down on Monday morning. Their concerns range from voting rights to potential cuts at Robins Air Force Base. The two groups planning the town hall event are organized via Facebook and comprised of around 200 people.
They hope other people will also join them too. Reporting in Warner Robins, Hunter King, 13 WMAZ News.
That's Republican Congressman Austin Scott of Georgia, who apparently has not held an in-person town hall in more than a decade. He's now refusing his constituents' request that he hold one. And so they're going to be holding one themselves in the parking lot of his district office on Monday, hoping that he shows up. That's in central Georgia.
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Chapter 6: How are constituents reacting to congressmen avoiding town halls?
Maybe because it seemed to have been organized on quite short notice, it did not go great. I'll show you what I mean. See if you can follow his logic here.
when the Doge group got together and they went with the different agencies and they said that they need to target, they need to try to target a certain amount of folks for employment, that was handed over to the agency. So all the people that you've heard about being released from different agencies, that was on the agency itself. It had nothing to do with Doge. So let's remember that.
And there's also a way to seek redress. If you think that there's somebody out there that should not have been terminated for employment, get a hold of the Doge folks directly or through us, and we'll help try to rectify that.
So first of all, all these firings of people who have federal government jobs, that has nothing to do with Doge. It totally wasn't them. Also, there's a system that if you think somebody's been fired who shouldn't have been, and the system is that you should call Doge, right? You should get a hold of the Doge folks directly, he says. Go ahead. Or through us.
Congressman Van Orden says he can help you get in touch with the Doge folks directly because that's the redress system in case anybody has been fired from the federal government who shouldn't be. That's the system.
Congressman Derek Van Orden, the Wisconsin Republican whose constituents are right now only getting in-person meetings with a congressman when a nearby Democratic congressman decides to host them. But that was him today on Facebook Live.
We also recently covered California Congressman Kevin Kiley, who is also refusing to meet in person with his constituents after a group of his constituents protested at his office. several days ago and announced that the local indivisible group would hold their own town hall for him, whether or not he was going to show up and be there. Today, hey, what do you know?
Congressman Kiley's office announced that he will do an online-only town hall on Monday. We're expecting former Democratic Congressman Tom Malinowski to hold a town hall in the New Jersey congressional district that's represented by Republican Tom Kaine. That'll be tomorrow night. Tom Malinowski is doing that because Kaine is apparently too afraid to meet with his constituents in New Jersey.
So a Democratic former congressman will do it for him instead. We're expecting the same this weekend, Sunday, from California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna. who says he's going to do three town halls in one day in three different Republican districts, Republican districts represented by California Republican Congressman David Valdeo, Young Kim and Ken Calvert.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the mass firings in federal agencies?
It's earned that name because of more than 200 petrochemical facilities along that stretch of river where the EPA has repeatedly found that residents are exposed to more than 10 times the level of health risk from hazardous air pollutants than people living elsewhere in the state. That's according to a report from Human Rights Watch.
When Joe Biden was president, the Justice Department and the EPA decided they were going to take some action there. The Biden-era Justice Department and the EPA brought a landmark lawsuit against that big petrochemical plant, that one that's just down the road from that elementary school. It's called the Denka Performance Elastomer Plant. They make neoprene.
In its lawsuit, the Biden administration alleged that the Denka facility was releasing unsafe levels of a toxic carcinogenic chemical called chloroprene into the air.
It said in the lawsuit, quote, the increased cancer risk that the communities near the facility are currently being exposed to because of Denka's chloroprene emissions presents an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health and welfare. In the aggregate, the thousands of people breathing this air are incurring a significantly higher cancer risk than would be typically allowed.
They are being exposed to a much greater cancer risk from Denka's air pollution than the majority of U.S. residents face. That action was taken under the last president, Joe Biden. Now, new president, radically different story. Donald Trump's Justice Department has just announced that they are dropping the lawsuit against that chemical plant. And they say they are dropping it because... DEI. Huh?
Seriously, they said that dropping this case, quote, fulfills President Trump's day one executive order, ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing. Because it's mostly black people who live nearby? Is that what you're saying? My colleague Alex Wagner traveled to southeast Louisiana this week to see the plant, to meet the people who live nearby.
I should say before I show you this next part that it is impossible for anyone to know what exactly caused any particular illness in this community. But what you're about to see reflects how things feel in the community of that plant. You'll also hear references to another chemical company, DuPont. That's because this facility used to be owned by DuPont.
How many of you feel like you know people either in your family or your circle of friends who are suffering adverse health effects because of the proximity of this plant?
So everybody.
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Chapter 8: What is happening in 'Cancer Alley' and why is it significant?
Wow. Incredibly important reporting, amazing and absolutely horrifying story. Alex Wagner, God bless you, my friend. I really appreciate you doing this. God bless you for doing this, Rachel. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Alex. We'll be right back. All right.
Tonight, we are awaiting a ruling from a federal judge that could result in thousands of federal workers who have just been fired getting their jobs back, at least temporarily. NBC News reports that after a hearing today in Maryland, the judge appears likely to reinstate those workers who were fired by the Trump administration. And he says that he would issue a ruling promptly.
Well, if the judge rules in that direction, this would be just the latest in a nearly unbroken losing streak in court when it comes to the many attempts by Donald Trump and his top campaign donor, Elon Musk, to fire huge swaths of federal workers indiscriminately.
These efforts to gut the federal government have been centered at a small government agency called the Office of Personnel Management, OPMs, supposedly like the HR office for the federal government.
At 12.01 p.m., one minute afternoon on Inauguration Day, literally within seconds of Donald Trump officially becoming president again, Elon Musk's Doge team were at OPM, getting themselves into that agency's computer systems, which contains the personal data of millions of federal employees. They locked everybody else out of that computer system.
They installed sofa beds so they could be there all the time. And it sounds like they were just peachy to have around. Three OPM officials told the Washington Post that, quote, morale plummeted as Doge agents clashed with senior career personnel. One official recalled a recent meeting in which a young Doge team member began screaming at senior developers and calling them, quote, idiots.
Elon Musk and his friendly band took over OPM first, apparently because they wanted to use it for their campaign to fire as much of the federal workforce as they possibly could. OPM was the entity that sent mass emails to federal workers urging them all to quit, essentially threatening them all that they needed to quit.
That was some of the email that said they should find higher productivity jobs rather than their low productivity jobs in the public sector. OPM ordered agencies to start firing people, but some workers were told they received termination notices in error. So, okay, no, no, no, come back. The same employees in some cases were later told, no, sorry, we did mean it, you actually are fired.
Those firings were quickly found to be likely against the law. This was the actual quote from the federal judge looking at that case, quote, OPM does not have any authority whatsoever under any statute in the history of the universe to fire employees at other government agencies. After that brushback from a federal judge, OPM then tried to say, actually, it had never ordered any of these firings.
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