The Common Ills

Wednesday, August 05, 2026

Wednesday, August 5, 2026. Chup and Hegseth cover up the crash of a civilian plane in the US due to the US military, Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn stop posing and preening as their backbones collapse, CBS NEWS had an important report on Epstein willing to air when Bari Weiss decided to fir the correspondent, and much more.

Isabel Kershner and Adam Rasgon (NEW YORK TIMES) note:

Soon after President Trump announced a new plan last week to deliver peace and security in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave instead experienced a spike in deadly Israeli bombings, which threatened to undermine hopes for long-awaited progress.

On Sunday, Israeli strikes killed 18 people, according to the health ministry in Gaza, making it one of the deadliest days there since a troubled cease-fire came into force in October. Gaza health ministry data from the conflict does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israeli strikes a day earlier killed at least two people and damaged warehouses for medical supplies, Palestinian officials said. And on Monday, the Israeli military struck a car on a beachside road, killing two, according to Gazan officials. No new Israeli strikes have been reported in Gaza since Monday evening.

Netanyahu is not listening to Chump. No one is. As Ben noted in the MEIDASTOUCH NEWS video at the top, Iran's negotiating with Jordan, not with Chump.

Meanwhile, Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) notes:

President Donald Trump's demand that oil companies roll back their profits, because it is hurting his standing with voters, is falling on deaf ears.

Energy markets responded with minimal reaction to Trump's Monday criticism of oil companies for "making too much money" off global shortages created by the Iran war, Politico is reporting and the president threatened, "They better cut the retail price, the consumer price. I'll say it loud and clear. I'm not happy about it."

Crude prices dipped slightly. Gas prices remained steady. The oil industry ignored the presidential pressure entirely.

Trump's ability to influence markets through rhetoric is deteriorating at a critical moment, the report notes, before adding, three months before midterm elections that will determine congressional control, his approval ratings are sinking amid voter anger over cost-of-living concerns.

Nicolai Haugsted (DAGENS) notes:

Pressure over the U.S. economy is no longer coming only from political opponents. A former member of Donald Trump’s own White House team is now accusing the administration of trying to convince Americans that everything is going well while many voters feel the exact opposite.

Sarah Matthews, who served as Trump’s deputy White House press secretary from June 2020 until January 2021, delivered the criticism during an appearance on MSNBC, where she argued that the administration is repeating mistakes Republicans once condemned.

Speaking on Deadline: White House, Matthews claimed the administration is attempting to paint a picture of economic strength that does not match the experience of many Americans.

“Republicans spent years mocking the Biden administration for trying to gaslight the American people and telling them that the economy was great when people were feeling the exact opposite. And they clearly learned nothing from this because this is exactly what the Trump administration is doing.”

Let's move over to the US miliary and the fact that they killed some people. No, not over in Iran, here in the United States. Joe Wilkins (FUTURISM) notes:

New bombshell reporting by Wired reveals an incident in which the testing of an experimental GPS jammer resulted in a medical plane crashing into the side of a mountain.

The horrifying incident happened in May, the publication reports, when a small twin-engine medevac aircraft carrying two pilots and two medical workers departed from Roswell, New Mexico. Heading West for the small mountain village of Ruidoso, the crew became the victim of an electronic warfare exercise being conducted at the nearby White Sands Missile Range, a test which rendered their navigational system inoperable.

Due to a combination of low visibility and an air-traffic control that was stretched far beyond capacity — at least three other planes reported navigation disruptions due to the GPS jamming — the pilots failed to register a mountainous formation between their plane and the landing strip.

As airline pilot and aviation crash analyst Juan Browne told Wired, the visual effect of that approach would have been stupefying. “When those lights go out, man, you know you are in big trouble,” Browne explained.

Unfortunately, the disoriented crew ran straight into the side of a mountain they likely never saw, resulting in the loss of every life on board. It’s the first known instance where military GPS jamming played a role in downing a civilian plane in US airspace. Reported incidents of GPS jamming within the continental US have skyrocketed in recent years. According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the number of GPS interference events went from four in 2020 to 50 in 2024, and 40 across 2025.

Jeff Wise reported on this at WIRED July 30th. Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense. This is on him. And he should have announced it when it happened Instead, he thought he could lie and not say anything. He thought he could lie to the American people. He thought he could cover this up. Hegseth is not fit to be Secretary of Defense. This was clear when JD Vance had to provide the tie splitting vote to get him confirmed. He wasn't qualified for the post in any manner, shape or form. He'd never run a big agency or organization. His money problems as the head of DoD? Reflect his mad spending as the head of two different charity organizations. And his non-stop lies? That's what the country has learned to expect from FOX "NEWS" TV personalities.

There should be a Congressional investigation into this.

And, it goes without saying, apologies to the family members of the deceased. But Hegseth will probably attempt to play this off as not his fault and not anything that the country needs to be concerned about.

Jeffrey Epstein. A lot of people helped him. They covered up for him. That especially includes people in the media. Vicky Ward, for example, had a strong piece on Epstein for VANITY FAIR back in 2003 but Graydon Carter watered it down. Turns out, 60 MINUTES was working on a hard hitting piece. But then Bari Weiss waddled into the room and it got killed and the reporter got fired. Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling (THE NEW REPUBLIC) explains:

CBS’s 60 Minutes had the scoop on Jeffrey Epstein’s sketchy financials—before the Bari Weiss-run network fired the reporter fronting the investigation.

A new report by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden revealed that Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America enabled Epstein by permitting millions in suspicious transactions over the course of the sex offender’s criminal career.

Deutsche Bank AG failed to promptly notify authorities of more than $250 million in questionable transfers tied to Epstein, according to Wyden’s report. Those included cash amounts to pay women in Russia and Eastern Europe—which the bank retroactively informed U.S. officials of after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2019.

Bank of America Corp. reported $170 million in Epstein-related transactions tied to billionaire Leon Black. The bank, according to Wyden’s report, noted years later that the transactions had “no apparent economic, business, or lawful purpose.”

JPMorgan Chase, as previously reported, processed more than $1 billion for Epstein, despite internal concerns at the bank.

Yet former 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi had the story months ago, having interviewed Wyden in March about her own investigation into Wall Street banks’ and the U.S. Virgin Islands government’s relationship with Epstein, according to Bloomberg.

But the report, and Wyden’s interview, would never air: Alfonsi was fired by CBS News leadership in the midst of a major network shakeup two months later in May, when she publicly criticized Weiss’s editorial grip on the storied news magazine. Weiss had blocked a segment Alfonsi previously reported on Donald Trump’s deportation program and El Salvador’s notoriously lethal CECOT prison.

A spokesperson for CBS News confirmed to Bloomberg that Alfonsi had interviewed Wyden earlier this year, but said the story had not been finished by the end of the last 60 Minutes season. The spokesperson did not elaborate on whether the show intended to air the segment during next season.

Joseph Stepansky (AL JAZEERA) observes:

Wyden added that bank records and public court filings reviewed by his team “detail a shocking pattern of the biggest Wall Street banks in the country choosing to ignore clear evidence of sex trafficking and money laundering, just to keep a wealthy client on the books”.

Beyond shielding Epstein from federal scrutiny, the report says the banks may also have been in violation of federal anti-money laundering laws that would have required them to report the suspicious behaviour.

Wyden also took aim at the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury, insinuating they did not perform their due diligence in their investigation of Epstein.

Henry Giardina (QUEERTY) notes:

Now, thanks to a new report from Senator Ron Wyden, we might finally have some real answers. Wyden followed the money and found that several “suspicious transactions” were flagged in Epstein’s Deutsche Bank account. The bank failed, however, to disclose this information to the government. Epstein’s JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America accounts saw similar shady activity connected to Epstein’s transactions with disgraced investor Leon Black. Together, the sum total of these flagged transactions exceeds $420 million. Some of these were payments to “women in Russia” and Eastern Europe.

In his 67-page report “Looking the Other Way: How Wall Street Banks Enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s Sex Trafficking.” Wyden calls out both banks for essentially facilitating Epstein’s trafficking crimes by failing to loop in the authorities despite repeated high profile red flag transactions. At the time of these exchanges, these banks were aware of Epstein’s criminal status. They let the money change hands anyway, and kept the authorities in the dark.

“Wall Street banks have been willing to turn a blind eye to the suspicious transactions of ultra-wealthy clients,” Wyden writes, “even if the failure to scrutinize and report these transactions runs directly afoul of federal law.”

A spokeswoman for Bank of America gave out the usual milquetoast statement, claiming that “we take our legal and regulatory responsibilities seriously and, as we have previously said, the bank did not facilitate wrongdoing.” Leon Black’s lawyers are claiming that the Epstein payments were part of a legitimate business enterprise. Sure, Tony Soprano!

Luckily, Wyden isn’t letting up that easily.

It gets worse. Tr*mp and his team continue to use every tool in their arsenal to cover-up the Epstein scandal, and Wyden’s intel is no exception. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refused to hand over the treasury’s files concerning Epstein to the Senate. Those same records were made readily available to Republicans in the House Oversight Comittee.

To make things even stickier, CBS EIC Bari Weiss allegedly also assisted in the cover up by failing to air a recently-taped 60 minutes segment with Wyden on this subject. Sharyn Alfonsi, the reporter who filmed Wyden’s segment was fired shortly after.

That news broke yesterday, the same day PARAMOUNT+ CEO David Ellison penned a column for THE NEW YORK TIMES insisting that the news and news consumers had nothing to fear from him:

There is a reason for that. I believe that anyone who oversees a news organization — I am chief executive of Paramount, which owns CBS — shouldn’t put a finger on the scale, especially on matters involving his own company. So when California’s attorney general, 11 other state attorneys general and, a day later, the Writers Guild of America sued to stop the deal, I stayed quiet. I quickly learned such restraint has costs. While I was silent, others were happy to write my story for me. No more.

The states claim this deal will give one company too much influence over theatrical releases and cable operators, while the W.G.A. argues that our combined market power will hurt writers. Both suits imagine a Hollywood that no longer exists — an industry ruled by a handful of legacy studios.

Add up every hour Americans spend watching television, and a combined Paramount-Warner would account for less than 20 percent of all watch time — competing every day against Netflix, Amazon, Apple, which are all companies whose resources dwarf ours. Include YouTube’s user-generated content in that math, and our share would drop to around 13 percent. A combined company would account for just 18 percent of the domestic box office over the past 12 months and only 22 percent, on average, over the past two years. Those are not the numbers of a company that can dictate what audiences watch or what writers get paid

He's so full of it. But that's especially obvious when he brings up other streamers. NETFLIX, AMAZON and APPLE do not have news magazine shows nor do they have newcasts in the morning or in the evening. PARAMOUNT does with CBS NEWS. Notice how he ignores that. And taking over WARNER BROS will also give them the 24 hour news channel CNN.

He insists that he's voted for various Republican and Democratic Party politicians over the years. I know for a fact that he's told friends that he plans to back off the right-wing tilt when Chump's out of the White House; however, that's not scheduled to happen until January 2029. He says repeatedly that it's journalism and it's news that he's doing. But he hired an opinion commentator (Bari) to oversee the news department and she keeps hiring fellow conservative opinion journalists. Broadcast journalism needs journalists trained in broadcast news. CBS NEWS' failing ratings go to the reality that Bari knows nothing about broadcast journalism and is either unwilling or unable to learn.

It takes a lot of fake asses to cover for Epstein. Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) notes one:

Since Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has publicly called for transparency on the disgraced financier and his potential co-conspirators, but a Tuesday report from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) suggested those calls were little more than a ruse.

Starting in the summer of 2024, Blackburn had been reached out to “repeatedly” with requests to support an effort to compel banks to fork over “Epstein-related suspicious activity,” MediasTouch’s Aaron Parnas reported Tuesday. Banks facilitated more than $1 billion in transfers from Epstein over nearly two decades, transfers that critics say should have been flagged as suspicious and forwarded to federal officials.

After Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent denied Wyden’s request to fork over records of Epstein-related bank activity at least three separate times, the Oregon senator moved to “force the issue legislatively,” and sought the support of Blackburn given her previous and continued calls for Epstein transparency, per MeidasTouch’s reporting.

“Her office never gave a clear answer and never responded to a direct request to co-sponsor the bill,” Parnas wrote. “Blackburn continued making public statements about being ‘stonewalled by Democrats’ on Epstein while privately declining every opportunity Wyden’s office offered her to actually do something about it.”

Blackburn began calling for transparency on Epstein within days of his suspicious death while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in a New York jail. And yet, behind the scenes, Blackburn refused to acknowledge Wyden’s attempts to shed light on Epstein’s financial activity.

It would appear that her concern was merely performative. Which is a lot like the actions of Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn who voted yesterday for Todd Blanche's nomination as Attorney General to be sent out of the Judiciary Committee and to the Senate floor. Paige Masten (THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER) notes:

Todd Blanche is on track to be confirmed by the Senate as attorney general, thanks to a new deal that supposedly resolves the concerns of Republican holdouts Thom Tillis and John Cornyn regarding the controversial settlement between Donald Trump and the IRS.

Blanche formally rescinded his previous order establishing the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund - which Tillis called a “payout pot for punks” - and clarified the scope of a provision that gave Trump and his family immunity from tax audits. Tillis and Cornyn affirmed Monday that they will now support Blanche’s nomination.

The “deal” is far more hollow than it appears on the surface. While it formally rescinds Blanche’s original order implementing Trump’s slush fund, it does not appear to formally modify the settlement that led to it, which is what Cornyn initially demanded. The settlement states that it cannot be modified without the written agreement of the parties involved, most notably Trump. As Blanche acknowledged at his confirmation hearing last month, the settlement may still be enforceable so long as it exists in its original form, and Trump and his lawyers could still try to see it through. As for Trump’s tax immunity deal, that remains intact, though it applies “only” to the president and his family and “only” retroactively, as if that makes it any less wrong.

In other words, Blanche’s written order affirms that the original fund is dead, but “dead” is not the same as “gone forever.” It does not preclude the Department of Justice from resurrecting the fund in the future, creating a similar fund under a different name, or from using taxpayer dollars to compensate so-called victims of “weaponization” through already existing means.

And that was obvious to anyone who wasn't a whore. Tillis and Cornyn whored to look big and strong and tough and then pretended that they had won when they lost. They couldn't actually vote "No." They played everyone for a sucker. Ahmad Austin Jr. (MEDIAITE) reports that

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) admitted there was “nothing we could do to rein in” President Donald Trump while talking about his anti-weaponization fund.

Cornyn — one of the holdouts preventing the confirmation of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — finally backed down Tuesday to allow Blanche’s nomination to advance to a full vote by the Senate.

Cornyn, along with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) had been withholding their support for Blanche over the president’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.

The fund, created after Trump reached a settlement with the IRS, was intended to pay those who were allegedly victims of the weaponization of government. It was immediately proven to be deeply unpopular across the political spectrum.

Speaking after Tuesday morning’s vote, Cornyn declared the anti-weaponization fund was effectively “dead.”

When he was asked about Trump’s insistence to pay the supposed victims in some way, Cornyn admitted the president can’t be reined in.

“Well, there’s nothing we could do to rein in the president when he said he likes the fund and he wishes it still exists,” Cornyn said. “But the fact of the matter, it’s dead, and that’s all we could do under these circumstances.”

No, that's not all you could do. You could have voted "No" and buried Blanche's nomination in Committee for the foreseeable future. That would have made a strong point. Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) notes:

Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse shamed Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis for supporting President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Todd Blanche for attorney general.

The two senators had held up Blanche's nomination over the president's $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, but the survivors blasted Cornyn and Tillis for ducking meetings with them and ultimately agreeing to support Blanche – who has played a central role in blocking the full release of the Epstein files, reported MS NOW's Lisa Rubin.

"Senators Tillis and Cornyn were not willing to sit across from us and answer for the vote they were preparing to cast," the survivors said in a statement. "If they believed they were doing the right thing, they should have had the courage to look survivors in the eye and tell us why."

"The message was unmistakable," the statement added. "They wanted us to go away."

Chris Brennan (USA TODAY) offers:

A pair of Republican senators – John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina – just declared that they will allow themselves to be played for fools in the most predictable and pathetic way.

On Aug. 3, Cornyn and Tillis dropped their opposition on the Senate Judiciary Committee to President Donald Trump's nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general.

They had threatened to tank Blanche's bid because he cooked up a remarkably corrupt lawsuit "settlement" that gifted Trump permanent immunity from an Internal Revenue Service audit and a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay his supporters who trashed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

[. . .]

As legal documents, they have zero value.

They were not filed in a court. No judge examined or approved them. And Trump did not sign them. On Aug. 3, he told journalists he didn't even look at them and didn't know what they contained.

That's not how federal lawsuits work. Settlements are not amended via social media posts by one party in an action.

It says exactly that in one of the two documents Blanche now claims to have amended – "This Settlement Agreement may be modified only with the written agreement of the Parties."

Turning to immigration, Brandon Caldwell (THE GRIO) reports:

The death of Edwin Lopez Cornejo is the second at the privately-owned detention center since it reopened last year.

Delaney Hall, the Newark, New Jersey, facility used to house those who have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, is once again at the center of controversy.

Edwin Jeovanny Lopez Cornejo, a Plainfield, New Jersey resident, was taken to the hospital on August 1, where he later died. His death marks the second recorded death at the detention center that became a flashpoint in President Trump’s escalation of immigration enforcement, as the government has equipped ICE with a multi-billion-dollar budget that surpasses the militaries of all but 15 countries globally.

“Reports that another person has died in ICE custody at Delaney Hall are heartbreaking and deeply disturbing—but tragically, they’re not unexpected. This is a pattern of abuse and neglect,” Rep. LaMonica McIver said in a statement.

She added, “I know about Delaney Hall and I know that cruelty is at its core. Even after the deaths, violence, abuse, and mistreatment of those inside, Republican leaders, even in our own state, deny the truth and refuse to act. Anyone who doesn’t see these heinous acts for what they are is choosing to do so.

“I am praying for the deceased and his family, and I will keep working to shut down Delaney Hall and abolish ICE before more innocent lives are lost.”

Lopez Cornejo, who was the father of a 12-year-old girl, according to his mother, had been in the country for 20 years when ICE agents detained him on June 18. According to a conversation with his mother, he had diabetes and epilepsy and took medication for his diabetes, high blood pressure and seizures.

Hallie Golden (INDEPENDENT) adds:

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker said the death underscored the need to permanently close the facility.

"This is not the first death of a detainee at Delaney Hall, and absent decisive action, it will not be the last," Booker said. "I have visited the facility myself and witnessed these conditions firsthand, so I say this plainly: Delaney Hall must be closed immediately and permanently."

It is the second detainee death at Delaney Hall during President Donald Trump's second term. Jean Wilson Brutus, a 41-year-old Haitian national, died there in December from a pulmonary embolism, which a medical examiner ruled was due to natural causes.

Lopez-Cornejo is also the second Salvadoran national to die in ICE custody during Trump's second term. Norlan Guzman-Fuentes was killed during a sniper attack on an ICE field office in Dallas in September.

Overall, at least 56 people have died in ICE custody during Trump's second term.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

Murray: “Chairman Johnson has said repeatedly he believes Social Security is a Ponzi scheme… I am going to keep fighting to save Social Security and protect healthcare for Americans. Now, and long into the future.”

Johnson: “I’ve said it’s a legal Ponzi scheme, which is exactly what it is. I mean, take a look at what a Ponzi scheme is. That’s what Social Security is.”

Murray: “Seems to me like the biggest Medicaid theft didn’t happen in a billing office somewhere, it actually happened last year, right here in the United States Capitol, when Republicans passed Trump’s Big Ugly bill.”

***WATCH: Senator Murray’s full questioning***

Washington, D.C. — Today, at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Medicaid, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Budget Committee, slammed Republicans’ sham hearing on Medicaid fraud. Senator Murray called out Trump for pardoning criminals convicted of Medicaid fraud and Republicans who voted to slash Medicaid to give tax cuts to billionaires last year in Trump’s Big Ugly Bill.

[MEDICAID FRAUD HYPOCRISY]

Senator Murray began by asking Jonathan Ingram, Vice President of Policy and Research at the Foundation for Government Accountability, about how Trump and Republicans’ say they want to crack down on Medicaid fraud; meanwhile Trump has actually pardoned criminals convicted of Medicaid fraud.

MURRAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we can all agree can we do need to crack down on fraud, especially in a program like Medicaid that so many Americans really rely on.

So, Mr. Ingram, let me just ask you: Yes or no? You agree that we need to be cracking down on Medicaid fraud, not letting criminals off the hook, yes?

INGRAM: Yes.

MURRAY: Thank you. So, I hope my Republican colleagues will use some part of this hearing to condemn President Trump for pardoning criminals who were convicted of major Medicaid fraud. Trump pardoned five former executives from Florida who committed serious Medicaid fraud to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. That is pretty bad.

Following what was dubbed “the largest health care fraud scheme charged by the U.S. Justice Department”—valued at over $1 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud—Trump commuted the 20-year sentence of a Florida nursing home and assisted living facility executive. So that’s even worse.

So, look, I’m all for a major crackdown on fraud—I think we all are, but it looks like we’ve got some pretty good leads starting in the White House.

[REPUBLICAN MEDICAID CUTS]

Senator Murray continued by asking Andy Schneider, Research Professor of the Practice at the Center for Children and Families in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, about how Trump’s Big Ugly Bill made the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history and kicked thousands of Americans off their health insurance, all to give massive tax breaks to billionaires.

MURRAY: Mr. Schneider, I want to turn to you. What single piece of legislation delivered the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history?

SCHNEIDER: Last year’s budget reconciliation bill.

MURRAY: Yep. Just so everybody knows: Republicans’ “Big, Ugly Bill” passed more than $1 trillion in health care cuts, mostly to Medicaid.

Mr. Schneider, how much in tax breaks for the top one percent did Trump’s bill contain?

SCHNEIDER: Approximately $1 trillion.

MURRAY: $1 trillion dollars, in tax cuts, to the top one percent.

Mr. Schneider, how many Americans are losing health care because of Trump’s Big Ugly Bill?

SCHNEIDER: So, in terms of the Medicaid cuts, the latest estimates are approximately 11 million.

MURRAY: 11 million.

So, zero billionaires lose their health care—they do get a trillion in tax cuts and then over fifteen million Americans—including the extended ACA tax credits—lose their health care thanks to Republicans passing $1 trillion in cuts for regular, working class people.

That is the math, and that is out-and-out grift. So it seems to me like the biggest Medicaid theft didn’t happen in a billing office somewhere, it actually happened last year, right here in the United States Capitol, when Republicans passed Trump’s Big Ugly bill.

[CLOSING REMARKS]

During Senator Murray’s closing remarks, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), doubled down on his stance on Social Security and called it a “legal Ponzi scheme.”

MURRAY: So Mr. Chairman, let me just say, I find it pretty astounding that Republicans are holding an entire Senate hearing on “fraud” in Medicaid, but they don’t seem to have anything to say about the “fraud” coming out of the White House. I mean look at the crypto schemes, and the foreign gifts—that is easily the most corrupt White House in American history—President Trump pardoned convicted criminals who committed Medicaid fraud! This is outrageous to me, and it is what we should be talking about.

But I also want to note a really big difference in terms of values and beliefs right now. Because I am here—and I know my colleagues on this side are—to fight for our safety net programs. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not with me in that fight.

Chairman Johnson has said repeatedly he believes Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. Last week, another Republican Senator was on the floor saying Social Security is a “scam.”

So, I wanted to make really clear at this hearing, I could not disagree more strongly, Mr. Chairman. Social Security is a program that millions of hardworking Americans have paid into their entire lives. So Republicans might want to cut benefits, or privatize Social Security, but I want you to know I am going to keep fighting to save Social Security and protect healthcare for Americans. Now, and long into the future.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

JOHNSON: To correct the record, I’ve said it’s a legal Ponzi scheme, which is exactly what it is. I mean, take a look at what a Ponzi scheme is. That’s what Social Security is. It’s been horribly mismanaged. Those funds were not invested in something that’s of value to the federal government—government bonds. I’m happy to—and we’ll probably hold a hearing on this, and I’ll prove the case—but it’s a legal Ponzi scheme, and that’s quite honestly indisputable.

MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, to respond.

And welcome to the chairmanship, but I find that you are turning this into a debate committee, not a budget committee. That’s fine, but let me just respond—

JOHNSON: I think it’s important that the American people see a civil exchange but go ahead.

MURRAY: You have a right as a chair, but I will respond: Americans pay for their Social Security. They pay into it for their lifetimes, and they deserve to know it’s going to be there in the future. That’s what we’re focused on.

###

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