A CNN panel tackled Elon Musk, the world's richest man, signaling on a broadly popular podcast that Donald Trump's administration might disrupt Social Security payments.
The president's billionaire benefactor and top adviser appeared Friday on Joe Rogan's podcast, where he called the New Deal-era social safety net a "Ponzi scheme," arguing that birth rates have fallen and life expectancy has increased, and the former Social Security commissioner Martin O'Malley said Monday that cuts made by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could result in the system's imminent collapse.
"I think that this is going to be a political problem for this president and the administration," said Jackie Kucinich, the Washington bureau chief for The Boston Globe. "Both the message and the messenger. Yeah, because this is the most politically strong argument that Democrats have. It's one thing to talk about the threat of a constitutional crisis, or the threat of democracy, or the erosion of democracy, as we heard Democrats talk so much about on the campaign trail. But this is your grandmother is not going to be able to access the services that she needs to get her Social Security."
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CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams agreed, saying that Americans would not accept cuts to the venerable entitlements program.
"There are three American values: mom, apple pie and not messing with Social Security," Williams said. "It's the kind of thing that, again, when we talk about these abstract issues all the time, people don't really have their heads around – Social Security is one. Now, look, that does not change the immense popularity both Joe Rogan and Elon Musk have with with a huge swath of the population, but when you start getting into things that affect people, getting back to our last segment there are, you know, until people start feeling something at their pocketbook, it's just hard to get their heads around."
Host Audie Cornish asked about the significance of the president's close adviser floating possible cuts or disruptions to retirement benefits on a podcast that's widely popular with younger, conservative-leaning men.
"What do you make of this messenger and the message?" Cornish said. "Is this someone who's getting out ahead of the president, is this someone doing it because they want to plant the seeds and they want to do it within the grass roots?"
They rolled video clips of Trump promising not to touch Social Security during his re-election campaign, and as recently as two weeks ago, but Kucinich said she doesn't believe Musk went off-script with Rogan.
"Musk's proximity to Trump, to that power, is why this is problematic," Kucinich said. "It is abundantly clear that these two talk all the time, so if you have someone like Elon Musk, maybe he's off message, but he's I mean, he's the closest the proximity he has to power is why what he says on Joe Rogan, or anywhere else, for that matter matters."
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