White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed Democrats’ hypocritical position ahead of DOGE’s Social Security audit. Leavitt defended President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s objectives on “Hannity” Monday, pointing out that former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton championed rooting out waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars.
ELON MUSK SAYS MILLIONS IN SOCIAL SECURITY DATABASE ARE BETWEEN AGES OF 100 AND 159
KAROLINE LEAVITT: If you just watched that video, but shut your eyes and listen to the words from those Democrat politicians, you would think you are listening to President Trump, Elon Musk and our entire administration, who are saying the exact same things that Democrat politicians promised the American people they would do for decades. President Trump is just the first president in our lifetimes to actually do it. And now you see the Democrat Party and the mainstream media spiraling out of control about a very simple promise: rooting out waste, fraud and abuse from our federal bureaucracy. This is a promise President Trump campaigned on. He is now delivering on it.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a briefing at the White House, on Wednesday, Feb. 12. (AP/Evan Vucci)
I’ve been fighting fake news reporters all day long here in the Washington, D.C. swamp who are trying to fearmonger the American people into believing that this administration is going after their hard-earned tax dollars and their hard-earned Social Security checks. So I want to set the record straight on your show tonight, Sean, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to do so. President Trump has directed Elon Musk and the Doge team to identify fraud at the Social Security Administration. They haven’t dug into the books yet, but they suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people who are receiving fraudulent Social Security payments and so their goal in going into the Social Security Administration is to identify three things: Number one, to identify duplicate payments and to end them, Number two, to identify payments that are going to deceased people who are no longer living and should no longer be receiving that money and number three, to protect the integrity of the system for hardworking Americans who have been paying into it their entire lives.
President Donald Trump speaks as Elon Musk, joined by his son X Æ A-Xii, listens in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
So rest assured to all of the people watching your show tonight, if you paid into the system, honestly, you will continue to receive your Social Security checks. Do not buy into the lies from the legacy fake news media, who are trying to fear you and scare you into believing otherwise. This is what we’ve seen them do about President Trump for years with every promise that he has made, and he’s going in there to protect your hard-earned money. That is the ultimate goal.
Demonstrators join more than a thousand people protesting the policies of the Trump administration marched from the Boston Common past City Hall to the North End, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. (AP/Michael Casey)
Democrats have ramped up their attacks on the Department of Government Efficiency and its leader, billionaire Elon Musk, over the past week, arguing that Trump’s project is a violation of the Constitution and filing several lawsuits in an effort to bring the new department’s momentum to a halt.
The White House is taking aim at Democratic critics of DOGE, highlighting that the new agency’s work was once championed by prominent Democrats, including former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
“We hope to be instilling an entire new culture, that not only our administration, but every succeeding administration will in fact pursue,” Biden says at one point in the video.
“What should be easy is getting rid of the pointless waste and stupid spending that doesn’t benefit anybody,” Obama says during another point of the video from the Oval Office, where the then-president is seated next to a large stack of papers. “No amount of waste is acceptable, not when it’s your money.”
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Recent polling shows Americans may side with Trump and Musk on DOGE. In one poll conducted by the Trafalgar Group, 49% of respondents said they approve of DOGE’s efforts compared to 44% who indicated they disapprove.
Trump and Musk will sit down with Sean Hannity for an exclusive interview, airing Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on Fox News Channel.
Fox News’ Michael Lee contributed to this report.
