1. United States
2. Idaho
3. Letter

In a podcast appearance Friday, Howard Lutnick ― a billionaire Trump donor-turned-Cabinet member ― pontificated that seniors wouldn’t worry if they didn’t receive a Social Security check one month. “Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain. She just wouldn’t. She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month,” Lutnick, who has an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion, said on the “All-In” podcast. He went on to suggest “that halting Social Security checks might be a good way to root out people trying to defraud the system”. His remarks come the same day Leland Dudek, the temporary director of the Social Security Administration, suggested agency operations would be so burdened by a court blocking the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive databases that he would just have to shut down the whole department, potentially halting payments to 70 million people. I have been paying into Social Security since 1969, and I depend on the monthly checks to support me and my wife. Please tell me this will not happen and what you, as my representatives in Washington, are doing to prevent this.