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On Tuesday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren did something that would have been politically unthinkable for Democrats even a year before: She published a heavily-promoted op-ed on the Fox News site. Yeah, that Fox News.
Unlike in years past, Warren’s foray into hostile territory wasn’t met with scolding that she was legitimizing President Donald Trump’s leading propaganda outlet. Instead, her searing defense of Social Security is the first big step in Democrats’ efforts to protect America’s social safety net by taking the fight directly to conservative media outlets—and it could prove pivotal in the budget battle to come.
Warren’s op-ed is just the beginning of a media blitz that Democrats hope will pin Republicans down on their broken pledges to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. From Capitol Hill to constituent town halls, Democratic lawmakers are finally honing in on a message that works. Now they need to sell it.
They’re getting plenty of help from two unlikely sources: Trump himself and his billionaire henchman Elon Musk, who have managed to bring the Social Security Administration to the brink of collapse thanks to a more than 50% cut in the agency’s technology division. Last month, Daily Kos reported that the SSA website crashed four times in 10 days, causing major headaches for seniors. Problems are even worse in April, with The Washington Post reporting that the website now crashes nearly three times per week, often for up to a full day at a time.
“Donald Trump has set this billionaire loose in the federal government, firing people and cutting programs left and right, just to pay for more tax cuts for people at the very top who don’t need it,” Rhode Island Rep. Seth Magaziner said at a press conference on Tuesday. “It is unconscionable.” It’s also the GOP’s biggest political liability.
Now Republicans are going a step further, proposing cuts to both Social Security and Medicaid as a way to fund Trump’s debt-exploding tax cuts for billionaires and corporations. Trump and his GOP allies may think they can fool the American people, but things aren’t quite shaking out as they’d hoped. Republican lawmakers now find their constituent town halls packed with furious voters who feel betrayed by Trump’s bogus populism. In response, Republicans chose to … cancel all of their constituent meetings. Amazing.
Related | Democrats hear out pissed-off voters while Republicans ghost them
All that chaos has opened up a major opportunity for Democrats, who seem surprised to learn that nearly 80% of Americans and over two-thirds of Republican voters strongly oppose any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Senate Democrats put that knowledge into action this week with their first ad campaign of the 2026 election cycle, tying Sens. Thom Tillis and Susan Collins to the increasing chaos at SSA.
“In 2026, voters will hold Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, and Senate Republicans accountable for their toxic plan to slash Social Security in order to pay for a tax giveaway to billionaires,” Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Communications Director Maeve Coyle said.
Team Tillis is taking the threat seriously, with the senator recently promising to protect North Carolinians’ critical social services from dangerous cuts. He has reason to be nervous: In 2020, Tillis beat Democrat Cal Cunningham by just 95,000 votes. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to North Carolinas’ nearly 2.3 million Social Security beneficiaries, many of whom Tillis infuriated by refusing to attend a town hall event last month in Raleigh. Hundreds more protested against Social Security cuts outside Tillis’ Greensboro office. It was hardly the warm reception the two-term senator expected.
Democrats are also prepared to offer the American people some media spectacle after years of dry, policy-focused discussion. House Democrats on Thursday demanded a formal investigation into Musk’s Social Security meddling, citing new whistleblower allegations that Musk’s incompetence is putting beneficiaries’ sensitive personal data at risk. That came a day after leading Democrats visited SSA headquarters for a “day of action” that generated a flood of positive media coverage. After months of messaging stumbles, Democrats have finally remembered how to control the news cycle.
The party’s all-in approach on Social Security isn’t just generating major headlines—it’s reshaping how the American public thinks about both parties. Navigator Research found that most Americans now trust Democrats to protect social services like Social Security and Medicaid. Meanwhile, more Americans than ever rank protecting Social Security as among their top political issues. If Democrats can keep voters focused on Social Security as the litmus test for 2026, Republicans will soon find themselves sailing into a perfect storm of political fury.
As Democrats reach deeper into the GOP’s political base, Republicans have been left scrambling to avoid any discussion of Social Security. Unfortunately for them, a looming budget battle makes that impossible—especially when the future of Trump’s tax cuts depends on slashing social programs like Medicaid.
The House’s prolonged budget process ensures Republicans will be tied to their proposed Social Security cuts through much of the summer, offering Democrats plenty of time to hammer their message home to weary voters. House Democratic leaders are convinced Social Security will be the issue that returns them to power in 2026. For now, Republicans seem to believe them.
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