Fact checker confirms Trump still taking credit for fixing a problem that never existed

03 June

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at U.S. Steel Corporation–Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, U.S., May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis

An analysis by Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler shows the Trump administration is still wheeling out lies months after they’ve been outed.

“This is an example of how, even after falsehoods are exposed, the spin machine keeps working,” wrote Kessler, referring to a March 4 post by President Donald Trump that “government databases list … 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.”

In February, the Washington Post published an article documenting the truth of the matter, that Social Security databases rely on an almost 70-year-old computer programming language called COBOL, which doesn’t have a standardized way to store dates.

This means ancient programmers assigned a default date, such as 1875, to people lacking birth information, many of them seniors born before a reliable federal birth recording program was in place. But when Musk’s DOGE team scanned Social Security systems, “they were shocked to find people listed in the system with absurd ages because of the limitations of an old programming language,” writes Kessler.

People familiar with Social Security’s systems were already aware of the issue, of course. The Social Security Administration has automatically terminated the benefits of people once they reach age 115 since 2015. Kessler reports the U.S. Office of Inspector General had recommended a cleanup of the system in 2023, but Social Security deferred the project because it would “divert resources” from other important work and “would have limited or no benefit to the administration.” A 2023 IG report found the vast majority of beneficiaries who lacked a birth date had already died and been purged from the system anyhow. Plus, any major overhaul could introduce new errors to the system.

Still, the notion of wrongdoers scamming Social Security was “an irresistible talking point,” says Kessler, so much so that DOGE bragged of fixing the “problem” late last month on social media: “After 11 weeks, Social Security has finished this major cleanup initiative: ~12.3M individuals aged 120+ have now been marked as deceased.”

“The post was carefully worded,” said Kessler. “It did not claim that 12 million people had received improper payments. Instead, it said that these people had been marked as deceased. In other words, DOGE appears to have implemented the plan suggested by the IG two years ago.”

Despite that, Kessler said Trump supporters eagerly greeted the news and used it to justify the president's “original false claim.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) was one of many cheerleaders jumping aboard a non-moving train, claiming: "No more 300-year-olds getting Social Security checks because of Elon Musk. Thank God President Trump had the wisdom to put Elon in place."

The train included other personalities such as right-wing entertainer Sean Hannity, and Speaker Mike Johnson.

“… [W]ithin the echo chamber of the pro-Trump universe, a problem that never existed now has been fixed,” Kessler said.

Read the original Washington Post report at this link.

From Your Site Articles