Trump Treasury Sec. Brazenly Gives Up the Game on Social Security

The Trump administration is working toward privatizing Social Security.

Speaking with Breitbart at the far-right media company’s policy event Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent referred to the “big, beautiful bill’s” “Trump accounts” as a “backdoor” for privatizing the public program.

As a stipulation of Trump’s tax bill, the U.S. government would deposit $1,000 in so-called “Trump accounts” for Americans born between 2025 and 2028. The investment, according to Bessent, would dually serve as a way to prevent young people from getting “disillusioned with the system” and voting for the likes of New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and a way to slyly privatize Social Security.

“So when you do this, you make everyone a shareholder. You make everyone a stakeholder. People who are part of the system do not want to bring down the system,” Bessent said.

Bessent then shared an anecdote about being asked to help manage a construction worker’s hypothetical lottery winnings, to which he claimed that the “best thing you can do is save that $20.”

“Now, with these accounts, they can be part of the system. What if they had put that money in the S&P? Or in Bitcoin? Or in anything? So, we’re making people part of the system, we’re increasing financial literacy,” Bessent said. “I think that at Treasury, we are going to push, with these accounts, that if you have the account we want you to learn about it and understand it.

“In a way, it is a backdoor for privatizing Social Security,” he continued. “Social Security is a defined benefit plan paid out to the extent that if, all of a sudden, these accounts grow and you have in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for your retirement, then that’s a game changer, too.”

Congressional Republicans pushed through Trump’s tax plan earlier this month without any Democratic support. The law is not expected to save the government any money, as Trump had initially promised. Instead, Trump’s key legislative victory—which will slice taxes on the ultrawealthy and corporations while gutting social programs such as Medicaid—is expected to add upward of $6 trillion to the debt, according to a projection from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

Conservative lawmakers are fighting tooth and nail to retain their right to trade stocks while in office.

The caucus turned out in staunch opposition Wednesday to Republican Senator Josh Hawley’s proposed stock trading ban, causing a significant stir in the upper chamber after the White House flagged the bill as a bad idea.

In order to gain Democratic support and advance the motion through the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Hawley agreed to include text within the bill that would additionally subject Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to the parameters of the ban, just as members of Congress would be. But the White House’s Office of Legislative Affairs, and the executive branch’s Senate allies, were not in favor.

Senator Ron Johnson torched the effort as “legislative demagoguery,” claiming Wednesday that banning lawmakers and their spouses from trading stocks would “make it very unattractive for people to run for office.”

“I have no idea what we’re voting for,” said Senator Bernie Moreno. “I have not read the mountains of paper that are sitting in front of me.”

At one point, Senator Rick Scott condemned the effort as “disgusting,” accusing Hawley of denigrating billionaires. But Hawley, seated next to Scott, had a firm response.

“I don’t mind anyone being rich, I mind people getting rich while they’re here and trading stocks,” the Missouri senator said.

Committee Chair Rand Paul similarly opposed the bill, positing that any such ban would have made it impossible for Trump to be president. The Kentucky lawmaker admitted that he had scheduled a vote on the bill in a quiet quid pro quo: “To get two bills that I want passed through without being beleaguered by amendments,” he said in an interview with Axios.

The White House, meanwhile, argued that its opposition to Hawley’s bill had little to do with its contents.

“This was a last-minute deal struck to include the Executive Branch equities without touching base with the White House to discuss potential Article II concerns,” a White House official told Axios. “Any pause comes purely from potential Article II infringement, not the Congressional ban.”

The president, however, attacked Hawley personally hours later, claiming that the senator’s decision to “block” a review of Representative Nancy Pelosi’s stock trading was “sabotage.”

Hawley had introduced the original bill in 2023 after Pelosi’s husband came under increased scrutiny for his extensive trading practices, though the accusations festered without any evidence of insider trading. By the end of the day, the committee had voted 8-7 to advance the bill, with all Republicans except Hawley voting against it.

“The Democrats, because of our tremendous ACHIEVEMENTS and SUCCESS, have been trying to ‘Target’ me for a long period of time, and they’re using Josh Hawley, who I got elected TWICE, as a pawn to help them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I wonder why Hawley would pass a Bill that Nancy Pelosi is in absolute love with—He is playing right into the dirty hands of the Democrats. It’s a great Bill for her, and her ‘husband,’ but so bad for our Country!”

“I don’t think real Republicans want to see their President, who has had unprecedented success, TARGETED, because of the ‘whims’ of a second-tier Senator named Josh Hawley!” Trump added.

This story has been updated.

Since Donald Trump entered the White House, the supposedly hardline fiscal conservatives of the House Freedom Caucus appear to have softened that line to a malleable putty—and everyone on Capitol Hill knows it.

The Bulwark reported Wednesday that as members of the HFC left for summer break, they were “all over the place” following a series of toothless concessions to the president’s sweeping spending agenda. Now, the House Freedom Caucus has even earned a new nickname among reporters and lawmakers: the House Folding Caucus.

Although they had initially criticized the Senate’s version of Trump’s behemoth budget bill at the beginning of July, HFC members ultimately fell in line to support the president’s bill that would explode the national deficit by trillions of dollars. A few weeks later, they momentarily stalled Trump’s GENIUS Act, arguing that the cryptobill went against an executive order banning central bank currency. But once again, they conceded to the president’s demands after the GOP leadership promised to tie the ban into the Pentagon’s policy bill later this year.

HFC Chairman Andy Harris said that the group should start working on a one-year continuing resolution that would allow them to freeze federal funding, but the group’s position remains unclear. Four members are currently staging their exits from Congress, with Representatives Ralph Norman, Byron Donalds, and Andy Biggs all preparing gubernatorial campaigns in their respective states, and Representative Mike Collins launching a Senate bid in his state.

With a president who just does whatever he wants regardless of what Congress thinks, a far-right attack dog is no longer required—and has been left neutered and freezing in the doghouse.

Texas Republicans are moving forward with their gerrymandering plan that will essentially create new pro-Trump districts in a state that already has an overwhelming GOP majority.

The new map, revealed Wednesday, will create five new GOP-skewed districts, which could very well help Republicans grow their majority in the House in 2026. The map puts districts currently held by Democratic Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez at risk of becoming more red, while isolating blue districts to create even more Republican-leaning ones.

The map’s new districts will contain three regions that Trump carried by 10 to 15 percentage points last election, shamelessly rigging the game to seize power in a thinly divided Congress. It will also create six districts without incumbents—making 2026 an even more critical race.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is reportedly headed to Texas on Wednesday for a sit-down with Democratic leaders, while the map is set for final approval in a committee hearing on Friday.

On Wednesday, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa said he was “offended” by Donald Trump’s “personal attacks,” as the president wages war on the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition.

Traditionally, when the president nominates someone for a federal judgeship, the Senate Judiciary Committee chair (currently Grassley) sends so-called blue slips to the nominee’s home-state senators. If both return the slips, the nomination proceeds; if at least one holds off, it’s effectively vetoed.

In giving the minority party significant influence over the confirmation process, the tradition restricts Trump’s ongoing effort to mold the judiciary in his image. The president has thus been applying pressure on Grassley to abandon it.

On Tuesday evening, Trump said, in a Truth Social post, that the tradition is a “probably Unconstitutional” “hoax” and “SCAM” that would force him to appoint Democratic or “weak” Republicans rather than “Highly Qualified” (read: MAGA) judges.

He urged Grassley to find the “Courage” to abandon the tradition “IMMEDIATELY,” so as to “not let the Democrats laugh at him and the Republican Party for being weak and ineffective.” The president also made a point to take full credit for Grassley’s 2022 reelection to the Senate “when he was down, by a lot,” Trump said.

The president also shared a number of other users’ posts opposing blue slips, some of which took pot shots at Grassley. One called Grassley a “sneaky” “RINO,” short for Republican in name only. One accused the senator of “standing in the way” of Trump’s agenda. Another post shared by Trump suggested that certain elected officials, including Grassley, have been in office too long and ought to be “dethrone[d]” via term limits.

On Tuesday night, Grassley indicated that he would not do away with the tradition. The senator then hit back at Trump during his opening remarks at a Wednesday Senate Judiciary hearing.

“Last night, I was surprised to see President Trump on Truth Social go after me and Senate Republicans over what we call the ‘blue slip,’” Grassley said, before giving a brief explanation of the tradition for “people in the Real America” rather than the “island surrounded by reality” that is Washington, D.C.

“I was offended by what the president said, and I’m disappointed that it would result in personal insults,” Grassley continued.

Politico reports that Grassley’s decision to hold firm has the support of party leaders on both sides of the aisle.