An offhand comment by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about Social Security at a forum on Wednesday hosted by Breitbart News drew a stunned reaction on MSNBC on Thursday morning.
Addressing a provision contained in the budget bill signed by President Donald Trump that allows for setting up tax-deferred children’s investment accounts, also called “Trump accounts,” the Cabinet member admitted they are a “back door for privatizing Social Security.”
Specifically, Bessent blandly pointed out, “I’m not sure when the distribution level date should be, whether it should it be 30, and you can buy a house, should it be 60. But in a way it is a backdoor for privatizing Social Security.”
That earned the billionaire Trump appointee a “Whoa’ from MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.
Addressing Rep. Richie Torres (D-NY), the “Morning Joe ” host continued, “He said the quiet part out loud. Congressman, so you got this bill and, again, I don’t know politics, but you got this bill that slashes health care for the most needy among us. It gives the biggest tax cuts ever to billionaires and multinational corporations, and now the treasury secretary says it creates a way to privatize Social Security. What say you?”
“I think it shows the world what we’ve long known: that Donald Trump is a snake oil salesman,” the New York lawmaker replied. “And, you know, the slogan of Trump has been ‘promises made, promises kept.’ He made a promise to protect Medicaid, and instead he has cut it by $1 trillion. He made a promise to protect Social Security and now you have his treasury secretary threatening to privatize Social Security.”
“And, of course, he made a promise to release the Epstein files and instead, he’s broken his promise to his own base. So there’s a pattern here?” he added.
“Yeah, there is,” Scarborough replied. “And again, Jon Lemire, this is an own goal,to put it mildly, when again, you have this massive bill that’s already hugely unpopular that slashes health care, I mean, for people in Red State America for people in rural America, slashes health care there. It slashes health care in Blue State America. It gives tax cuts to billionaires and IT monopolists it. It slashes taxes for multinational corporations and now the treasury secretary says it’s going to help us privatize Social Security.”
“I mean, you talk about touching all the third rails of American politics at the same time — they’ve just done it,” he suggested.
Co-host Jonathan Lemire replied, “Yeah, and there’s a recognition that they did. The treasury secretary, the department, put out a statement a few hours later, running back, not just walking back, but running back it.”
“But, yes, for many it was revelatory that this is something that perhaps the Trump administration is going to try to push through,” he explained. “To the congressman’s point, you know, again, Democrats have been warning about this all along and here we have an extremely influential member of the cabinet suggesting it’s a possibility.”
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