May 06,2025

Wyden Urges Colleagues to Vote ‘No’ on Bisignano’s Nomination to Lead Social Security

As Prepared for Delivery

Watch a video of Wyden deliver his remarks here

The Senate is about to vote on Frank Bisignano to serve as Commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

I came to the floor last week to lay out my concerns surrounding the confirmation process for Mr. Bisignano. This nominee lied multiple times to myself, my staff, and members of the Finance Committee. He directly contradicted a confidential whistleblower report that I received, detailing Mr. Bisignano’s close ties to DOGE and its ongoing operations at the Social Security Administration. When pressed on it during his confirmation hearing, he lied to me and the Committee, saying he had no direct involvement with DOGE.

Mr. Bisignano has made a very lucrative career out of being the guy that swoops in to failing businesses, guts them from the inside out, and moves on to his next target.

This is not someone nominated because of his plans to bolster customer service and make it easier for seniors to access their hard-earned benefits, or to strengthen the Social Security guarantee. He was nominated because Donald Trump hopes Mr. Bisignano will apply that same approach to Social Security and upend life for millions of seniors and people with disabilities as they know it. 

The administration is already weaponizing Social Security to go after immigrants and other groups it wants to target. All under the guise of rooting out fraud and abuse in the system.

Social Security is a lifeline to millions of seniors and Americans with disabilities. A missed Social Security check can be the difference between seniors being able to afford rent, groceries, or medications. But Donald Trump and his inner circle are so out of touch, they think most Americans won’t even notice if they start missing Social Security checks. In March, Commerce Secretary and billionaire Howard Lutnick mused that his mother in law wouldn’t complain if she missed a Social Security check one month. I wouldn’t expect the mother-in-law of a billionaire to complain either. But for the rest of Americas’ seniors who aren't lucky enough to have a billionaire son-in-law, a missed Social Security check will be the difference between being able to put food on the table, keep a roof over their head, and pick up their prescriptions at the pharmacy. Mr. Lutnick went on to say that anyone who did complain of a missed Social Security payment is a fraudster. That’s some top tier gaslighting if I’ve ever heard it. Lay the groundwork for Americans to miss their checks, and when they do, immediately write off anyone that complains as a fraud. The Trump administration is doing its best to get people used to the idea of seniors missing their checks. 

Their strategy here is death by a thousand cuts. First they cut off customer service, then they close field offices and lay off staff. Then they farm out their customer service operations to private equity firms that employ A-I chatbots and foreign call centers in an effort to plunge Americans into a maze of red tape designed to keep them from getting their earned benefits.

It’s also a pathway to privatization. None of us have to look hard to see the damage private equity has brought to nearly every corner of industry and business. Take health care for example. These firms are gobbling up medical practices and hospitals in hopes of turning a profit. They’ve turned the simplest task of scheduling a doctor’s appointment into an olympic sport, forcing patients to navigate phone trees or automated online systems that don’t offer any real help. And if patients need to get life-saving treatment, health insurers like UnitedHealth deploy A-I programs to deny claims left and right. But this is exactly what Trump is hoping Mr. Bisignano will do: gut the Social Security Administration from the inside out, then sell the parts off to the highest private equity bidder and make it harder for everyone to get their money. Their goal is to break the system so thoroughly, that Americans buy in to privatizing the system entirely. 

Everything the Trump administration is doing is part of an agenda to make you and your family poorer, sicker, and less safe than ever before.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that our country is at a turning point. At no time during the history of Social Security have we come this close to the possibility of seniors and people with disabilities missing their Social Security checks. Social Security is money that Americans pay out of each paycheck. So when seniors and people with disabilities start missing Social Security checks, that’s DOGE and Elon Musk stealing your hard-earned money.

By confirming Mr. Bisignano, the Senate will be signing the death sentence for Social Security as we know it.

Republicans will be responsible when your grandma misses her Social Security check and can’t pay for her month’s rent.

Republicans will be responsible when your aunt living in rural Oregon can’t get the help she needs because the phone lines have been shut off and her closest field office was shut down.

Republicans will be responsible when an entire generation of seniors and disabled Americans are left unable to afford the basic necessities.

At a time when costs are rising, the federal government should be focused on cutting costs and helping families and seniors afford the cost of living. Instead, Republicans are poised to pass another bailout for billionaires and corporations, while simultaneously working to dismantle the federal programs and resources that Americans rely on.

That’s the Republican agenda in a nutshell, and every single member of this body that votes to confirm this nominee will own the consequences.

Mr. Bisignano is unfit to be the steward of Americans’ hard-earned Social Security benefits. I urge my colleagues to vote no on his nomination.

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