Trump Accounts Pose 'Back Door' Threat to Social Security - The Thursday AM Quickie 7/31/25

They found a radioactive wasp nest near a nuclear bomb factory in South Carolina – but no wasps. Presumably they gained the power of invisibility like in a comic book. Or maybe they flew off into outer space to found a new colony until their eventual triumphant return to Planet Earth. Anything's possible, really. - Corey

ON THE SHOW TODAY

7/31: The guests will be Tim Sahay, publisher of the Polycrisis newsletter and co-director of the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab, discussing his new piece, Beyond Neoliberalism; and Silky Shah, author and director of the Detention Watch Network to discuss her book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition.

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Today you'll read about the far-right extremist Donald Trump put in charge of counterterrorism, why many Democrats are relieved about the latest statement from Kamala Harris about her future plans, and the growing support in the Senate for a Bernie Sanders-sponsored ban on arms sales to Israel.

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THE BIG NEWS

Bessent Admits Plot to Destroy Social Security

Republican Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent yesterday "said the quiet part out loud." At an event hosted by the right-wing website Breitbart, Bessent called the "Trump accounts" created under the GOP's Big Bogus Bill this year "a back door for privatizing Social Security."

The mostly useless accounts give newborns a $1,000 tax-deferred savings account that families can put up to $5,000 a year into until the kid turns 18, benefiting the wealthy more than the poor and middle-income. The Trump accounts were originally called MAGA accounts but apparently that wasn't quite cultish enough for the Republican Party.