Screenshot via X.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) grilled Frank Bisignano, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Social Security Administration (SSA), in a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday, being unsatisfied with how Bisiginano was ducking his questions about staff cuts.
Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts with DOGE to reshape the federal government have been highly controversial, from an email demanding all federal workers justify their continued employment, to the massive layoffs being pushed, to Musk’s conflicts of interest. Multiple lawsuits have already been filed challenging the creation of DOGE, their activities, their access to sensitive government data and files, and Musk’s role. Last week, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking Musk and the DOGE team from accessing sensitive personal and private information about Social Security recipients.
The Washington Post published a detailed report on the SSA cuts on Tuesday, describing the agency as “engulfed in crisis”:
The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.
And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.
Forbes described Bisignano as a “Wall Street veteran,” listing several of his past positions that included CEO of payment processing company Fiserv, CEO of mortgage banking and co-COO at JP Morgan Chase, and “multiple leadership roles at Citigroup.” His confirmation hearing comes in the middle of all these disputes, and one key issue brought up by several senators was the DOGE cuts to the SSA’s phone system, which have an especially big impact because Social Security recipients tend to be older and/or disabled, so may be less internet savvy or easily able to come to an office in person.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) spoke right before Sanders, and asked Bisignano pointed questions about the cuts to the SSA call center being detrimental to “customer service,” pointing out that the wait times were long and the hours inconvenient for working people — and telling how he had had his staff call the SSA to see what it was like. According to Daines, his staffer who called was “disconnected twice,” and then had to listen to “this really D-grade elevator music” repeating “over and over again” for an hour — which he played for the microphone from his cell phone.
“I mean, it could’ve at least had Olivia Newton-John or some mediocre ’70s music,” Daines quipped, but then added that after all that, the staffer was disconnected yet again. He encouraged Bisignano to call the toll-free number himself “and see what it’s like for your own experience.”
Bisignano acknowledged that there were callers who were waiting “an hour and a half” and sometimes “only half the callers get through,” and said he had a “multi-channel strategy” to address this, whether beneficiaries wanted to contact the SSA in person, over the phone, or online. “All three of those channels have to execute well,” said Bisignano, and he was making a “commitment to work my tail off on all of it.”
Sanders went next, and asked Bisignano about the reported error rate and some claims made by DOGE, before getting into the staff cuts issue, saying that Daines “made a good point — if you call Social Security today, it’s a disaster.”
The senior senator from Vermont asked Bisignano about the SSA “closing down offices and laying off 7,000 employees,” with stated plans to cut “up to half” of the workforce even though the department was now “understaffed.”
“Do you think it makes sense to lay off half the staff?” asked Sanders.
“First and foremost, I’m not there, sir –” began Bisiginano, referring to the fact that he had not yet been confirmed and so was not yet at the SSA.
“Just answer the question, please,” Sanders interjected. “Do you think it makes sense — I know you’re not there — do you think it makes sense to lay off half the staff, when right now, it’s is a 50-year low in terms of staffing?”
Bisiginano stammered out a reply that he didn’t know and didn’t know where the figures Sanders had mentioned were coming from, when Sanders pressed him again.
“I’m just asking you, I mean, I think what Mr. Senator Daines said was right — tough to get through right now,” Sanders asked again. “I think common sense would suggest that when it’s bad now, you don’t lay off half your staff. Would you agree with me?”
“Uh, I-I believe that we can drive efficiency for the rest of our life,” said Bisignano. “I also understand that it takes 20-plus minutes to answer the phone –”
“– On a good day,” said Sanders.
“Right,” replied Bisignano. “Well, that’s the average, published, that’s not how I would report the numbers because I think –”
Sanders asked his question again for a fourth time. “All right, but all that I’m asking, when you have a system that is not working now, do you think it’s a great idea to lay off half of the employees?”
This time, the senator got an answer. “I don’t know if — do I think it’s a great idea to lay off half of the employees when a system doesn’t work?” replied Bisignano. “I think the answer is probably no.”
Bisiginano’s full confirmation hearing can also be viewed on the C-SPAN website here. The relevant section begins around the 1:50 mark.
The post WATCH: Bernie Sanders Browbeats Trump’s Social Security Chief Nominee Into Admitting DOGE’s Staff Cuts Are a Bad Idea first appeared on Mediaite.
