The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration admitted this week that he specifically targeted Maine after watching Gov. Janet Mills clash with President Donald Trump during an event at the White House.

“I was ticked at the governor of Maine for not being real cordial to the president,” Lee Dudek told the New York Times.

Dudek directed the agency to cancel a decades-old program that allows parents to register their newborns for a social security number while at hospitals.

The mandate only applied to Maine and required new parents to show up at a Social Security office in person to register their newborns.

The change was rescinded one day later after an outcry from Maine and criticism from the state’s congressional delegation. A similar program to end electronic death records also targeted Maine and was quickly reversed.

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District said the targeting of Maine by Dudek is “infuriating and absurd.”

“This is beyond the pale,” Pingree said in an interview on Tuesday. “To do this because some guy is angry because he doesn’t think our governor is polite? I don’t even have words.”

Rep. Jared Golden, D-2nd District, called the move a “petty overstep” by Dudek. The Trump administration is “wrong to target the entire state” over an issue that should be resolved in the state Legislature or courts, he said in a written statement Tuesday evening.

“I’m glad he saw the error of his actions and rectified it,” Golden said.

Mills’ office did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Dudek issued an apology when he rescinded the order, although he never provided an explanation for the abrupt change or for the reversal.

“I screwed up. I’ll admit I screwed up,” Dudek told the Times this week.

In an interview published on March 18 by HuffPost, Dudek made similar remarks about being angry with Mills and said he shared his anger with staff. But he also denied in that interview that the move in Maine was simple retaliation for the dispute between Mills and Trump.

He said the Maine contract that he briefly canceled looked “strange” but did not say how. Each state has a similar contract.

“I’m not interested in political retaliation. I’m interested in serving the public,” Dudek told HuffPost.

The program to register newborns at a hospital or health care facility has been in effect since the late 1980s.

Dudek said he made the decision after watching a testy exchange between Mills and Trump at the National Governors Association dinner in February.

In the February dust-up, Trump told Mills she had better change the state’s policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports or the state would not get any federal funding.

When Mills answered that she was following state and federal laws, Trump said, “We are the federal law.” Mills replied, “See you in court.”

Dudek’s order, which went into effect on March 6 and was reversed a day later, briefly caused much confusion at Social Security offices and hospitals.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, spoke to Dudek the day of the eliminations, said Blake Kernen, a spokesperson for her office. Dudek apologized and called the act “a mistake” at the time, she said.

“Whatever the cause of this nonsensical change, Senator Collins said that it made absolutely no sense to place this unnecessary and inefficient burden on new parents and grieving families and was glad that it was immediately reversed,” Kernen said in a written statement.

Brad White, of Bangor, told the Press Herald that his wife gave birth on March 6, and he anticipated he would be allowed to check a box on a form to register their newborn. Instead, he was told the program had ended and to call Social Security. He got through to the Bangor Social Security Office, but he said workers there “had no clue what I was talking about.”

When the Social Security decision was initially reversed, Dudek and Social Security officials did not respond to questions about the rationale behind the order.

Social Security officials on Tuesday also did not respond to a request to interview Dudek, and instead pointed to his March 7 public apology.

ADMISSION COMES AMID POTENTIAL LAYOFFS

The admission comes at a time when the Social Security Administration is bracing for layoffs, with the Trump administration aiming to reduce its workforce from 57,000 to 50,000, according to news reports, and to initially close 26 field offices. None of the field offices listed for initial closure is in Maine, although union officials in Maine said recently that they are concerned that the Presque Isle Social Security office could close as part of the Trump administration cutbacks.

Dudek was a midlevel manager at Social Security before being elevated to the acting commissioner job by the Trump administration after Dudek expressed support for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency work at Social Security. Musk, without evidence, has claimed massive fraud at Social Security, including false claims that many people are receiving Social Security checks for dead relatives.

Pingree said it appears as if DOGE, working with the Trump administration, is attempting to dismantle Social Security.

“They make these cuts to the point where Social Security is unable to operate, where people get their checks months and months late,” Pingree said. “It’s like if they drive it into the ground, then they can say ‘See, this doesn’t work anymore, so let’s turn it over to the private sector.'”

Staff Reporter Daniel Kool contributed to this report.