No, Warren didn't say citizens don’t have the right to know what the government spends money on

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has criticized President Donad Trump adviser Elon Musk’s access to the federal payment system. But a purported quote attributed to Warren about who can see what the government spends money on isn’t authentic. 

"There is nothing in the Constitution that says ordinary citizens have a right to see what we spend our tax dollars on," a quote in a Feb. 9 Facebook post said. It’s attributed to Warren on Jan. 30, 2025.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

As the Facebook post points out, the Constitution includes a clause in Article 1 that says "no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law, and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time." 

A Warren spokesperson told PolitiFact the quote attributed to the senator is fake.

We found no evidence that she made such a statement Jan. 30, or anytime. 

Press releases the senator’s office issued that day included no such claim. 

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Threads posts

stated on January 20, 2025 in a post

Second lady Usha Vance “will have her citizenship revoked if (President Donald) Trump signs his executive order banning birthright citizenship.”

When she appeared on ABC’s "The View" talk show that morning, she urged Democrats to "get back in the fight" but didn’t say people didn’t have the right to know how the federal government spent tax money. 

Searching for the quote led us only to unsourced social media posts.

And on the senator’s own social media accounts, we found nothing resembling this Facebook post’s quote. 

We rate claims she said this False.