Rachel Maddow ripped into Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s defense on Friday of Social Security cuts in remarks the MSNBC host flagged as “a political disaster” – which she played for viewers more than once.
“I feel like in any other moment this would have been wallpaper all over the American media,” Maddow said during her primetime show on Friday. “I feel like I almost have to close my eyes because I can't bear to watch it.”
Maddow delivered a deeply critical rebuke of Lutnick, a billionaire who told the “All-In in DC!” podcast on Friday: "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."
The comments from President Donald Trump's commerce secretary sent Maddow fuming.
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“Howard Lutnick, Wall Street titan, Trump cabinet member, saying that his mother-in-law wouldn't call and complain,” the host said. “She’d just wait until next month, see if her check came then, anybody complaining about not getting a check is obviously a criminal,” she added sarcastically. “How does that comport with what you understand of the reality of getting a Social Security check?
Maddow went on to tell viewers that what makes the remarks so astonishing is Lutnick’s high-ranking position in the U.S. government.
“This is not like a random podcaster, dude,” she said. “This is a cabinet official in the Trump administration while they are devastating Social Security.”
She concluded her sound off by appealing to Trump administration officials and others sympathetic to Lutnick's view.
“Try seeing that through the eyes of people, even just people in the news,” Maddow said Friday. “Maybe you can't imagine real human beings that you've met, right? But try seeing it through the eyes of people in the news whose Social Security checks have, for one reason or another, been cut off, and who are not the mother-in-law of the commerce secretary for Donald Trump.”
Watch the clip below or at this link:
