Propublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates power abuse. Sign up and receive the biggest story as soon as it’s published.
Social Security has been in a much more unstable place than is widely understood, since the team arrived from Elon Musk’s Government Efficiency Bureau. Dudek said at last week’s closure meeting that he “don’t want to ruin the system,” according to a recording obtained by Propublica. He also said that if Doge made changes at his agency, which he had been cleaning up as much as USAID, the Treasury and others, it would be “devastating for the people of our country.”
Dudek’s comments provide an extraordinary window into the idea of top agency officials during the volatile early days of the second Trump administration, with a group of senior staff and social security advocates personally and effectively presenting them. The Washington Post first reported Dudek’s approval that Doge was calling the shots on Social Security, citing some of his statements. But the full recording reveals that he went further, not just the actions taken at the agency by those he repeatedly called “The Doge Kids,” but also the actions taken by the extensive input he received from the White House itself. When participants at the conference asked why President Donald Trump didn’t force the encouraging call for continued false claims as “BS” about widespread social security fraud, Dudek replied. This is dealing with – Have you ever worked with someone with man disease? ”
Throughout the meeting, Dudek made a surprising statement about the dangers facing the social security system, but he did so in a strangely informal, debateful way. The ultimate fate of the nation’s largest and most popular social program, the participants serving 73 million Americans, have baffled several participants. “Are we going to break something?” Dudek asked at one point, referring to what Doge is doing with Social Security Data. “I don’t know.”
But then he said in a more encouraging tone: “They are learning. Let people learn. They’ll make mistakes.”
Leland Dudek Credit: by Social Security Bureau
Dudek embodies the dramatic whipping of life as a civil servant under Doge. For 25 years he was the ultimate faceless bureaucrat. He bouncing off among federal agencies and eventually landed at the Social Security Agency, a mid-level analyst focusing on information technology, cybersecurity and fraud prevention. He was little known even within the agency. But in February, he suddenly jumped into the public eye when he was suddenly on vacation to share information secretly with Doge. It seemed he might lose his job, but he was then unexpectedly promoted to the position of proxy committee by the Trump administration. At the time, he appeared to be indifferent to Doge Agenda, and later wrote a Bellicose LinkedIn post that shared executives from bullied agencies, shared executive contact information, and expressed pride in connecting Doge to avoid the Doge chain.
Now, weeks after his tenure, he was on a much more ambiguous attitude towards Trump, not just Doge. On multiple occasions during last week’s meeting, Dudek framed the options he’d made in recent weeks as a “presidential” agenda, according to the recording. These choices include planned cuts to at least 7,000 Social Security employees. Buyouts and early retirements were offered to all 57,000 staff, including those working in field offices and teleservice centres, as well as those helping seniors and disabled people navigate the program. Reducing fault determination services. Disbanding of teams working to improve the user experience of the SSA.gov website and application process. We have reduced the footprint of agencies nationwide from 10 regional offices to four. End of 64 leases, including some field offices and hearing spaces. Proposal to outsource Social Security customer service. more.
What we see
During Donald Trump’s second presidency, Propovica will focus on areas that need scrutiny. Below are some of the issues reporters watch, and how to safely communicate with them.
We are doing something new. Helpful?
“I work for the president. According to the recording, Dudeck said. “I had to make some tough choices, I didn’t agree, but the president wanted it and I did it,” he later added. (He didn’t name any particular actions Trump did or did not direct.)
At yet another point, Dudek said, “I don’t want to fire anyone,” but “Many of the structural changes you saw at headquarters have had long conversations with the White House and the Doge team. … And that’s not to say I don’t have a little more choice of what should come. The President has an agenda. I’m a political appointee. I have to follow that agenda.”
Dudek has also dismissed Trump’s claims about social security fraud multiple times. The president amplified it hours after Dudeck’s meeting in a speech to Congress that implied that millions of people over the age of 100 are receiving Social Security benefits. Dudek said one of the Social Security databases the Doge team has seen is people over the age of 110, but those people say “it’s not wage status.” “These are records we never bothered,” he explained.
Still, Dudek and his two deputies spoke intermittently at the meeting, but seemed hesitant to resist Trump’s falsehood more. The spokesman said they are proud of the recent press releases that, in gentle language, they are obliquely inconsistent with some of the false claims. Other sources say Doge’s story about dead people who benefited from “reaching before us” said “it’s a victory you haven’t seen any more [misinformation]because they are educated. ”
Dudek and Social Security spokesmen, White House and Elon Musk, did not respond to requests for comment.
Dudek’s remarks come when many Social Security employees are confused about Dudek, his role and the role of Doge, and what it means for the future of the Social Security Agency. Many don’t seem to have a full grasp of what’s going on with the program, which marks its 90th anniversary this year, as recent cuts have been made in the agency in fragments.
The looming spector of Layoffs, and the potentially thousands of employees making the acquisition by Friday deadline, means that, as reported by Propublica, will not pay any more attention to the complex casework of low-income seniors and people with physical and intellectual disabilities.
Meanwhile, Doge, which Musk portrayed as a team of techno efficiency geniuses, has actually undermined the efficiency of providing Social Security services in multiple ways, many employees said. Under Doge, several Social Security agreements have been cancelled or reduced. Five employees are currently telling Propublica. Their technical systems seem to crash almost every day, and they say they will be offering more services to beneficiaries. This was already a problem, they said, but it has become “a lot worse” and “not the norm,” the two employees said.
Also, under the policies Doge has applied to many institutions, frontline Social Security staff are restricted from using government purchase cards for a total of more than $1. This has become an important issue in some outdoor offices. One management level employee said, particularly when workers need to obtain or create copies of the important records and original documents (such as birth certificates) needed to process some social security claims.
“There are results in the election,” Dudek wrote to agency staff in an email on March 1st.
According to the recording, at last week’s meeting, Dudek was asked about many of these organizational changes. He said the closure and integration of regional offices, as well as the reductions in some agencies that help assess disability claims, have already been significantly backlogged. That would not have been my first preference. I think we need to see what happens from a fallout perspective. ”
“Again,” he said, “I work for the President. Doge is part of it.”
According to a copy of the agenda, Dudek, who was scheduled to speak only for 15 minutes, instead spoke for about an hour, and everything from a book entitled “Bureaucracy” that mentions Trump. He continued to swing between sharing his supporters’ concerns about vulnerable Social Security recipients and sticking to some of the things Doge was trying to do at his agency.
“I actually like having kids around,” he says, and although they weren’t new to the “nuances” of Social Security, he was trying to make them more thoughtful. “They think about their jobs differently.”
Offices examining disparities in veteran care are “liquidated”
He confirmed that members of the Doge team have extensive access to American Social Security numbers and other personal data, but argued that if they do anything illegal with that information, he could be investigated and prosecuted. He said he wanted to lift the field office and customer service resources in bulk, even if frontline workers receive the acquisition offer just like other staff members.
Throughout, Dudek emphasized that he wants constructive feedback and open conversations because he cares deeply about the Social Security Agency and the people it serves. He was honest about his flaws. “I’m in a role I didn’t expect to be,” he said. “I’m an IT guy and a scam guy.”
Dudek will eventually be replaced by Frank Bisignano, Trump’s long-term choice to run the Social Security Agency. Sometimes, Dudec sounded deadly.
“I’m the villain,” he said on the recording. “I’m not going to do any work after this. I get it.”
