Chris Mays
Appearances
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump in search of waste need look no further than his own staff
So, yeah, I mean, what we're hoping to do is, first of all, gather information and gather evidence about what is actually going on out there. And this is incredibly important for a state like Arizona, where 1.5 million Arizonans rely on Social Security. One out of every five Arizona residents rely on Social Security. And so this is incredibly important to gather this information.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump in search of waste need look no further than his own staff
And I'll tell you what, we're getting some data back that is very, very alarming. We now know that more than three dozen people have reported to us a disruption in their actual checks.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump in search of waste need look no further than his own staff
in the checks that they're getting so disruptions and checks and then a number of other people 30 or so have told us that they're having trouble getting online that when they call they're being hung up on they're trying to change their address or they might be trying to change their direct deposit information and the website is freezing up And so, you know, this is very alarming.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump in search of waste need look no further than his own staff
It is unacceptable. And it strikes me as possible evidence that Elon Musk and Doge and Donald Trump are trying to sabotage Social Security from inside.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump in search of waste need look no further than his own staff
Absolutely. And we're just starting to think about that in terms of our resources inside the AG's office. We do have a consumer section where we do this kind of outreach for folks who are reporting consumer complaints. I have investigators that can go out. I mean, I just saw your lead up talking about the folks outside the Glendale office.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump in search of waste need look no further than his own staff
I think I'm going to send investigators out there to check out what's going on. But the other thing we can do is reach out to our congressional delegations and senators and ask them if they can have their folks work with these people.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump in search of waste need look no further than his own staff
But look, at the end of the day, if this is really happening and it's really starting to look like it is happening, we may very well be gathering evidence for a lawsuit against the administration on this. I mean, there is nothing, I think, more important in American life and for Americans than their Social Security checks. And this is money that Americans earned. It's their money.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump in search of waste need look no further than his own staff
And if it's being stolen from them or deprived from them, even for a few days, for many people, that can be catastrophic. It can mean that they're going to go without food. They could go without prescriptions, without medication. It could be a life or death situation. So in my mind, it was just incredibly important for us to give people a way to tell us whether this is happening.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump power grab tripped up by distinctly American resistance
Heartbreaking emails and phone calls have been pouring into my office over the past month. The impacts to our entire state, and especially rural Arizona, are astounding. Let us be clear, chaos is not efficient. Slashing jobs, gutting essential services, and leaving communities scrambling to pick up the pieces is not efficiency, it is destruction.