Trump Social Security Head Says He's 'Made Some Mistakes'

LOADING ERROR LOADING WASHINGTON — The temporary leader of the Social Security Administration acknowledged Tuesday in an email to staff that he’s made mistakes in his rapid shakeup of the agency but said he wouldn’t be deterred. “I promise you this, I will continue to make mistakes, but I will learn from them.” The message landed amid mounting questions about how Dudek’s changes, enacted at the behest of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, could negatively affect services for the 70 million Americans who rely on Social Security for retirement and disability benefits. On Tuesday, Dudek said in his email that the Social Security Administration would “address our customer service deficiencies” by making changes to the 800 number, such as by adding “a self-scheduling option for post-entitlement appointments.” He said the agency would address fraud in part by “establishing state-of-the-art methods for identity proofing,” including over the phone. Martin O’Malley, the previous commissioner of Social Security under President Joe Biden, told HuffPost earlier this month the rapid organizational changes and staff cuts could impair the agency’s performance so badly that it could actually miss benefit payments for the first time in 90 years. “And at the very least, you are going to see wait times skyrocket.” Tiffany Flick, a former senior Social Security official who left amid the DOGE purge, said in an affidavit this month in a court case that DOGE workers were reckless with data and clueless about fraud — and that Dudek went to great lengths to help them.