FILE PHOTO: United States Social Security Administration logo and U.S. flag are seen in this illustration taken April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano, who was a Wall Street executive before overseeing SSA, recently made a stunning admission to agency employees during a town hall event this week.
ABC News reported Thursday that it had obtained leaked audio from an event in which Bisignano spoke with Social Security managers from across the United States, in which the new SSA commissioner admitted he had no knowledge of the job when President Donald Trump offered it to him.
"So, I get a phone call and it's about Social Security. And I'm really, I'm really not, I swear I'm not looking for a job," Bisignano is heard saying. "And I'm like, 'Well, what am I going to do?' So, I'm Googling Social Security. You know, one of my great skills, I'm one of the great Googlers on the East Coast."
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"I'm like, 'What the heck's the commissioner of Social Security?" He continued. "Put that as the headline for the Post: 'Great Googler in Chief. Chief in Googler' or whatever."
As commissioner of SSA, Bisignano is in charge of administering payments for the roughly 70 million retired and disabled Americans who rely on the agency for their income, along with surviving dependents of beneficiaries. Before he was tapped to lead the agency, Bisignano was chairman and CEO of Fiserv, which is a publicly traded financial technology company. He promised SSA managers at the town hall that he would not dismantle the agency.
"This is America's, you know, safety net -- it's not going away. And hopefully you hear me say this every day," he said. "You know who wants me to tell people that? Guess. The president."
Prior to his confirmation as commissioner, the agency was led by acting SSA commissioner Leland Dudek, who assumed the role after previous acting SSA commissioner Michelle King resigned. King stepped down earlier this year after she refused requests from representatives from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to access sensitive SSA information.
Click here to read ABC's report in full.