Good morning, everybody. Good morning, happy Friday.
Can I ask you a question, Karoline, very quickly?
Sure.
We're now hearing from constituents in some traditionally red districts right now complaining about what they say is the chainsaw approach and saying that it's been done very sloppily, the cuts to jobs and spending. How do you respond to that criticism?
I love how the media takes a few critics when the overwhelming response from the American people is support for what this administration is doing. If you look at the public polling, 70 percent of Americans, according to CBS, believe that President Trump is delivering on the promises he made. And there should be no secret about the fact that this administration is committed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse.
The president campaigned on that promise, Americans elected him on that promise, and he's actually delivering on it. And this is something that Democrats promised they would do for decades. President Trump is just the first president to get it done.
Let me ask you about the fraud, if I can. We can all have our own opinion about what is wasteful spending, and Republicans have praised the president for cutting wasteful spending. But fraud of course is a crime. So, have you turned over evidence of fraud to the Justice Department? And when should we expect to see those indictments?
It's a clever question. First of all, I think all Americans would agree that funding mastectomies in Mozambique is not something that the American people should be funding or DEI programs. I think it's fraudulent that the American government has been ripping off taxpayers in this way. And we also do know there has been extensive fraud, particularly if you look at Social Security.
In fact, according to an IG report from the Social Security Administration, there was $71 billion worth of fraud in one single fiscal year that we know about. And so, that is a lot of fraud, Peter, that the government has admitted to. So, this administration is committed to finding even more of that fraud, waste and abuse.
To be clear, that $71 billion was from 2015 to 2022, so it wasn't in just one year and it was --
$71 billion.
But it wasn't in one year, just to be clear.
In one report.
And it was in one report over multiple years from 2015 to 2022.
So, are you defending $71 billion in fraud, Peter? That's a lot of money, far too much and that's why this administration -- why is the media so against cutting waste, fraud and abuse from the government? I don't get it.
I just want to ask a question.
We won't be deterred. We will not be deterred from people like you in the press who are clearly adamantly opposed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse. But we know that American taxpayers at home who have been struggling with an inflationary crisis don't want their tax dollars going towards crazy DEI programs in countries overseas.
They also don't like the fact that there has been $71 billion worth of fraud in Social Security in improper payments going out the door. That's a problem that needs to be fixed and President Trump is going to fix it. That's your fifth question. Elena, do you have anything to ask?
You said something that wasn't true, which is you said that they have found before that they believe there have been tens of millions of people who were receiving money who are dead on the Social Security list. The same report that you referred to said that almost none of those individuals are receiving money.
Peter, did you watch the full clip of the interview that I did when I said that? And I said there are a lot of unanswered questions, and we suspect there could be tens of millions of people.
And I'm saying the IG report said that almost none of them --
So. you just said what I said is not true. In fact, it was true. That's a suspicion that this administration has and we're committed to finding out the truth. Thank you, everybody, happy Friday.