A video clip of former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg explaining Social Security Administration (SSA) database issues on the Flagrant podcast hosted by comedian Andrew Schulz has gained major traction online, amassing 2 million views in just one day on X, formerly Twitter.
The viral clip features Buttigieg, who worked in former President Joe Biden‘s administration, addressing misconceptions about deceased individuals receiving SSA benefits, clarifying the difference between being listed in a database and actually receiving payments.
Newsweek has reached out to the SSA via email on Saturday for comment.
Why It Matters
In 2025, an average of almost 69 million Americans per month will receive a Social Security benefit, according to the SSA, totaling about $1.6 trillion in benefits paid during the year. Social Security is a major source of income for most people over age 65.
Buttigieg’s interview comes amid controversy surrounding Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been conducting what it calls “a major cleanup” of Social Security records.
The cleanup began after Musk incorrectly claimed in February that millions of people over 100 years old could be collecting benefits. The SSA later clarified these figures were misinterpreted, explaining the records Musk referenced include individuals who, while not receiving benefits, have records lacking a recorded date of death.
What To Know
During a Wednesday appearance on Flagrant, which was hosted by Schulz, Akaash Singh and Mark Gagnon, Buttigieg provided a detailed explanation about Social Security records.
“Again, DOGE says they make it sound like there’s like millions of dead people getting Social Security. Exactly. We’re just not. That’s just not true.”
Singh then asked: “So how many are getting? Are there dead people? That’s because this seemed to me, fact.”
Buttigieg responded: “One thing to think about is like, obviously, the vast majority of people who die of old age are getting Social Security the day they die, right? So, like, for at least a minute or a week or a month or however long it takes, right? There’s that process of updating. But part of it had to do with how the database was built, and you just didn’t necessarily remove everybody from the database. It didn’t mean they were getting money, but it meant they were in the database.”
He continued: “You could twist that into looking like, this is what the president [Donald Trump] did in his speech. Like, it’s true there’s this database that had all these people from a hundred years ago. It was not true that they were getting checks, okay? But he said the one part, and your brain fills in the blanks, and now you think, ‘oh, s*** there’s, like…millions of people who are 150 years old getting it was not true.”
They make it sound like there are millions of dead people getting Social Security checks. But it’s just not true. pic.twitter.com/oZKRnczI9F
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) April 25, 2025
During his joint address to Congress in March, President Donald Trump said his administration was investigating widespread fraud in the Social Security program, stating that government databases list millions of beneficiaries at improbable ages, including individuals over 160 years old.
“We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on, ” he said during his speech. “Over 130,000 people according to the Social Security databases are aged over 160 years old. Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119….3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129, 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139, 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149. And money is being paid to many of them.”
Trump added that the database shows one person on the rolls aged 360 years. There’s no evidence of hundreds of thousands of people over 100 years old collecting benefits illegally. There is no one in the U.S. older than 116.
In a statement on February 19, then-acting SSA Commissioner Lee Dudek clarified that individuals listed as over 100 years old in the Social Security system are “not necessarily receiving benefits,” but are instead individuals without a recorded date of death.
In a March 2015 review, the SSA conceded it has not kept its filings up to date and that death records had not been updated for 6.5 million individuals over the age of 112 who were presumed deceased. The SSA later clarified that these Social Security numbers are not receiving benefits, noting that the agency automatically suspends payments to anyone listed as 115 years old or older.
What People Are Saying
Elon Musk initially brought attention to the SSA’s records on dead Social Security number holders in February. On X, he posted a spreadsheet of data showing “the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!”
He added: “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security.”
Pete Buttigieg responded to Musk’s attack on the SSA and wrote on X last month: “What he said about Social Security payments has been repeatedly debunked – so the question isn’t whether he’s lying about this, the question is why. What is this a pretext for? He and the GOP have long shown interest in going after Social Security. What are they going to try?”
President Donald Trump in a February interview with Fox News: “Social Security won’t be touched, other than if there’s fraud or something. It’s going to be strengthened. But it won’t be touched.”
Rennie Glasgow, a claims technical analyst at the SSA’s Schenectady office in New York, recently told The Daily Beast that DOGE’s cleanup efforts had mistakenly marked thousands of living Americans as deceased: “We have people who did not receive benefits come in every day with their ID and say, ‘I’m not dead, I’m alive!’”
Glasgow added: “What used to take 15 days to get done when we send something to a payment center is now taking about 30 to 45.”
What Happens Next?
In an X post on April 24, DOGE wrote that it continues to update records: “For the past 7 weeks, @SocialSecurity has been executing a major cleanup of their records. Approximately 11 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked deceased. Another ~1.4 million to go with expected completion in 2 weeks.”
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