On Tuesday, an NBC News reporter mentioned that sensitive Social Security data is being accessed by staff tasked with making significant cuts to the government workforce. It's a solution in search of a problem, he said.
President Donald Trump's pledge to slash the government workforce has targeted the Social Security Administration, leading to the resignation of the acting commissioner, Michelle King.
According to CNN, King served the department for 30 years, but she clashed with the Department of Government Efficiency. She quit after DOGE staff demanded access to Americans' "sensitive information" in the Social Security database.
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NBC News White House correspondent Garrett Haake told MSNBC host Ali Vitali that agencies across the government are experiencing a similar story.
"What's happening is staffers who are affiliated with DOGE are on-boarding at these different agencies, becoming essentially employees of the Social Security Administration or the IRS or what have you, and then attempting to gain access to some of these sensitive systems that contain a lot of data about you and me and taxpayers and, you know, benefit recipients all around the country," said Haake.
This has resulted in pushback in various ways, with workers sounding the alarm about compromised data.
"We've heard a lot of talk from folks in and around the administration about the reason they are pursuing these tactics," he continued.
MSNBC played a clip of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaking to Fox's Sean Hannity, claiming that the DOGE team "suspect[s] there are tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent social security payments."
Haake said that the system was audited last year, and while there certainly are dead people on the Social Security rolls, "they are not receiving tens of millions of dollars in payouts."
He also said the agency's fraud rate has been less than 1% over the last eight years.
"So, some of this, you know, there is certainly money coming out of these systems that needs to be fixed. I think this is something that the administration says DOGE is in there looking for, but they are sort of putting out on the table these claims about enormous fraud before finding the evidence to support it," said Haake.
See his report below or at the link here.