Aug 14, 2025 | Ninety years ago this week, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating the most popular government program in our nation’s history.
For nearly nine decades, through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American on time and without delay.
Before Social Security was signed into law, half of seniors in America lived in poverty. Today, although still way too high, that figure is 10%. Social Security is not, as Elon Musk has suggested, “the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time.” Quite the opposite. It is the most successful government program in American history. A program that over 160,000 older and disabled Vermonters benefit from each year.
And yet despite its success, President Trump and others have been working overtime to dismantle Social Security and undermine the confidence that the American people have in it. Since he took office, the Trump administration has fired at least 7,000 workers at the Social Security Administration, shut down Social Security field offices and made it more difficult for seniors and the disabled to receive the benefits they have earned over the phone.
Mar 22, 2025 | Rachel Maddow shares video of Donald Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, opining that missing a Social Security check for a month is no big deal and only someone committing fraud would complain about that. The remarks are only the latest in a series of dramatic moves by the Trump administration that show a lack of awareness or concern about the importance of regular Social Security checks to many Americans' survival.
Mar 22, 2025 | Elon Musk, the richest man on the planet who has business interests all over the world, strolled into the Pentagon today to meet with the Defense Secretary for a briefing. Meanwhile, federal judges are holding firm as Trump and his allies attack them for blocking his agenda. John Hope Bryant, Jon Allen, Max Rose, and Judy Gold join Stephanie Ruhle on The 11th Hour.
Mar 10, 2025 | Martin O’Malley former Governor of Maryland joins Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House to discuss the work being done by Elon Musk and his army of DOGE bros who are actively working to undermine Social Security, and what can be done to stop these changes before benefits and payments are interrupted.
