It looks like Donald Trump’s streak of hiring wildly unqualified people remains undefeated.
Frank Bisignano, the new Social Security Administration commissioner, revealed Wednesday that he’d needed to google what the position actually entailed after being tapped to lead the benefits agency servicing more than 70 million Americans, according to the Federal News Network.
In a largely unscripted address Wednesday, the former chairman and CEO of banking technology company Fiserv remarked that he wasn’t totally familiar with his new presidentially appointed role.
“I don’t think the commissioner of Social Security is like a globally known title. It is to you, right? But, like, it wasn’t to me,” Bisignano said. “I’m like, ‘Well, what am I gonna do?’ So I’m googling ‘Social Security.’ That’s one of my great skills, I’m one of the great googlers on the East Coast.”
“I’m like, ‘What the heck’s the commissioner of Social Security?’”
The best “googler on the East Coast” said that he hoped to oversee a “digital-first” agency.
“We’re never going to be client-first if we’re not digital-first in this era,” Bisignano said. “That’s the only way we’re going to win. You’re competing with experiences that people have with Amazon. If I can get something done at Amazon, why can’t I get something done the same way with Social Security? That’s how people think.”
Bisignano has no experience working in government, serving as a staunch defender of corporate interests, and was previously one of the highest-paid CEOs in the country.
In agreeing to serve as SSA commissioner, Bisignano also agreed to sell his shares in Fiserv, which were worth roughly $484 million. But because of a loophole in the tax code for government officials that defers his capital gains tax on divestment, he won’t be forced to pay tens of millions of dollars in potential taxes on the massive windfall.
The Trump administration is in the process of a massive overhaul at the SSA, after announcing that it plans to reduce the workforce by 7,000 federal workers, offering buyouts, and reassigning many employees from regional offices to field offices, according to FNN. Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency have alleged “extreme levels of fraud” at the SSA but have only uncovered two likely fraudulent claims out of over 110,000.
Some other desperately unqualified Trump hires include former Fox & Friends co-host turned Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and surgeon general nominee Casey Means, a wellness influencer and author who has no active medical license and never completed her physician residency.
The post Trump’s Social Security Head Bragged About Having to Google Own Job appeared first on New Republic.
