President Donald Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick can’t cease placing his foot in his mouth.
In a podcast look Friday, Lutnick ― a billionaire Trump donor-turned-Cupboard member ― pontificated that seniors wouldn’t fear in the event that they didn’t obtain a Social Safety examine one month.
“Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She just wouldn’t. She’d think something got messed up and she’ll get it next month,” Lutnick, who has an estimated web value of $1.5 billion, stated on the “All-In” podcast.
He instructed that halting Social Safety checks is likely to be a great way to root out individuals attempting to defraud the system.
“A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” he stated.
“The easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing,” he claimed. “Because my mother-in-law is not calling me. Come on, your mother ― 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds ― they trust the government.”
JIM WATSON by way of Getty Photos
A Bankrate survey from November discovered that 77% of present retirees depend on Social Safety checks to cowl crucial bills, whereas solely 15% say they aren’t in any respect reliant on them.
His remarks come the identical day Leland Dudek, the momentary director of the Social Safety Administration, instructed company operations can be so burdened by a court docket blocking the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity’s entry to delicate databases that he would simply must shut down the entire division, doubtlessly halting funds to 70 million individuals.
Lutnick’s out-of-touch feedback on Social Safety checks come days after a weird push he made for People to purchase inventory in Tesla, which has seen its shares lose about half of their worth this yr, wildly backfired.
In a Fox Information look Wednesday, Lutnick urged viewers to spend money on Elon Musk’s electrical automobile firm and promised them that the inventory will “never be this cheap again.”
“I mean, who wouldn’t invest in Elon Musk?” he stated of Trump’s adviser, who’s overseeing large cuts to federal applications. “You gotta be kidding me.”
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Tesla’s inventory dropped one other 1.7% the morning after Lutnick’s gross sales pitch.
