Trump Social Security Admin Shares Propaganda for ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Throughout President Donald Trump’s second term, he’s used every means possible to promote himself and prop up his agenda in unprecedented ways — even as he pulls apart the government brick by brick.

Now, it’s happening at the embattled Social Security Administration, which manages America’s core safety-net program. On Thursday, after Republicans passed Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — legislation that will slash taxes for the rich, rob millions of poor people of their health insurance, and turbocharge the president’s militarized deportations — the Social Security Administration sent out an email to an untold number of Americans claiming the bill “reaffirms President Trump’s promise to protect Social Security” while offering a range of misinformation about what the new law does. 

For one thing, the Big Beautiful Bill does not protect Social Security. It will actually “hasten Social Security insolvency by a year,” according to Kathleen Romig, the director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank. This is one of several claims in the Social Security Administration email that Romig flagged as “highly misleading” in a thread on Bluesky.

However, the bizarre email is just one small part of a sprawling, government-wide project that is already costing American taxpayers well upwards of a billion dollars, as Trump officials prioritize the mass distribution of MAGA propaganda in ways that would likely make many veterans of Trump’s first term blush. 

According to a current administration official and another Trump adviser, various offices at different federal departments and agencies spend inordinate amounts of time finding ways to sell even small developments as massive, earth-shaking Trump accomplishments. “Put his name on everything,” is how the administration official characterized the ongoing trend across the federal government, the national Republican Party, and elsewhere. 

The other Trump adviser, who has spoken to the president about this topic, tells Rolling Stone that Trump and his appointees’ drive to do this — at the Social Security Administration and beyond — was influenced by the propaganda success that Trump saw during his first administration, when he demanded his name be printed on the Covid-19 stimulus checks sent out at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Less than six months into his second term, we’ve already seen the Trump administration pour $200 million into ads, at the president’s request, thanking him for his immigration crackdown; spend up to $45 million on a military parade that took place on Trump’s birthday; and fly B-2 Bombers and other fighter jets over the White House during the signing ceremony for the Big Beautiful Bill on Friday. 

The move to turn the Social Security Administration into yet another Trump propaganda organ comes as the agency’s services degrade — thanks in large part to Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which gutted its workforce, moved to shutter local offices, and sought to implement major technical changes due to baseless concerns about fraud. As a result of DOGE’s changes, Social Security recipients in need of assistance may now find themselves stuck on the phone for more than three hours, if their calls aren’t disconnected without warning. 

Amid that ongoing crisis, the Trump administration now has the Social Security Administration touting the Big Beautiful Bill as benefiting seniors in ways it does not.

“The bill ensures that nearly 90 percent of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits, providing meaningful and immediate relief to seniors who have spent a lifetime contributing to our nation’s economy,” the email claimed. It added, “The new law includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries, providing relief to individuals and couples. Additionally, it provides an enhanced deduction for taxpayers aged 65 and older, ensuring that retirees can keep more of what they have earned.”

Trump put it more succinctly during the White House signing ceremony for the legislation, claiming that the bill achieves “no tax on Social Security for our great seniors.”

Romig, at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, wrote in a thread on Bluesky that the Big Beautiful Bill “did NOT repeal taxation of Social Security” benefits, and that its so-called “senior deduction” has literally “nothing to do with getting Social Security.”

“Most beneficiaries are NOT affected by the bill,” she added. “For ex: Beneficiaries who don’t pay taxes on Social Security now (and most don’t!). Beneficiaries under age 65. Beneficiaries w/ incomes above the bill’s phase-out.”

“Donald Trump has created a massive customer service crisis at Social Security,” Alex Lawson, executive director at the liberal advocacy group Social Security Works, tells Rolling Stone. Now, “instead of addressing the very real crisis people are facing,” he says, the agency is “sending a piece of political propaganda filled with lies.”