Steele calls Commerce secretary 'arrogant SOB' over Social Security remarks
Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Michael Steele chided Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for saying his mother-in-law “wouldn’t call and complain” if she didn’t get her Social Security check, and that fraudsters would protest the loudest.
In an interview on MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” Steele noted Lutnick, a billionaire businessman, is in a unique position to help his parents if the government misses a payment, but not all seniors are as lucky.
“So your mama would call you, she would call you, and guess what you would do? You'd write her a check. But what about the mother who doesn't have someone that they can call to put money in that bank account for a month, you insensitive lug? How dare you?” Steele said.
“Your mom is not going to worry because if you're any kind of a decent son, you're going to cover that month. But there are a lot of mothers out there who don't have that,” Steele added.
Steele leaned in further, calling Lutnick “arrogant” and telling him to “take your ass into a community where they don’t have those resources available to them.”
“This is the arrogance, right now, America. This is the arrogance. They're looking at you in the eye and saying, 'You can miss your payments. You'll be OK. You can feed your family with no money. You can clothe your family with no money for a month. You can do that.'"
“You arrogant SOB,” he added.
Lutnick has faced fierce backlash after saying in a podcast last week that his mother-in-law wouldn’t be too concerned if she didn’t get her Social Security check, saying, “She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining.”
“Anybody who’s been in the payment system and the processes, who knows the easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing,” Lutnick added. “Because my mother-in-law’s not calling, come on, your mother, 80-year-olds, 90-year-olds, they trust the government.”
Lutnick’s remarks come after tech billionaire Elon Musk, whom President Trump tapped to head up the Department of Government Efficiency, called Social Security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time” earlier this month and suggested there could be hundreds of billions of potential cuts targeting waste in entitlement programs.
The rhetoric has prompted pushback from experts and advocates who have accused Trump allies of spreading false claims about the amount of fraud actually found in the program.
Trump has vowed not to cut Social Security benefits.
Lutnick also said on Thursday that he’s against raising the retirement age — a proposal some Republicans have floated in Congress as a way to help shore up solvency for the program.
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