U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants President Donald Trump’s pick to run the U.S. Social Security Administration to come clean about the Republican White House’s plans for an agency that touches the lives of millions of Americans.
Frank Bisignano, the banker and financial technology executive tapped to lead the agency, is set to appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday.
Ahead of that appearance, Warren, D-Mass., and the panel’s ranking Democrat, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, are calling on Bisignano to commit to stopping a raft of executive actions that they fear are a “prelude to [privatizing]” the New Deal-era agency.
The Social Security Administration, which handled benefits for 71.6 million Americans in 2023, has already been rocked by reports of job cuts and shuttered offices, along with new policies that could require in-person office visits.
Separately, the administration’s critics have raised concerns about the “infiltration” of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s lieutenants at the quasi-governmental Department of Governmental Efficiency.
Last week, the agency’s acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, was forced to walk back a threat to cease operations after a federal judge blocked DOGE staffers from accessing sensitive data housed at the agency, NBC News reported.
“These new developments leave us deeply concerned that DOGE and the Trump administration are setting up the SSA for failure—a failure that could cut off Social Security benefits … that will then be used to justify a ‘private sector fix,’” the two lawmakers wrote Bisignano in a letter made public on Monday.
The Monday letter comes on top of one that Warren and Wyden sent to Bisignano last week, pressing him on the White House’s plans to trim some 7,000 jobs and its plans to require people who cannot verify their identities online to do so in person.
Such a change could force older Americans and people living with disabilities to travel up to 100 miles to sign up for benefits, the lawmakers said.
“Republicans have flirted with the idea of privatizing Social Security for over two decades. The latest changes at the Social Security Administration leave us worried that Elon Musk—with his clear disdain for the program that provides financial security to millions of Americans—has taken up the mantle as the latest privatization crusader,” they wrote to Bisignano on Monday.
The White House’s moves on one of the federal government’s “third-rail” entitlement programs come after Trump said that his administration was not “touching Social Security.”
Musk, meanwhile, has described Social Security as “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.”
In their Monday letter, Warren and Wyden called on Bisignano to make several commitments before his confirmation vote, including not privatizing any of the agency’s operations and not closing Social Security Administration offices if those closings ” cause severe disruptions, dramatically increased travel times, or disproportionately impact individuals with severe disabilities or illnesses.”
Warren and Wyden also called on Bisignano to yank Musk’s allies from within the agency.
“You are the nominee to be the next SSA Commissioner, and if confirmed, will have to address the consequences of DOGE’s recent actions,” they wrote.