Vice President JD Vance on Friday held a inaugural meeting of the new anti-fraud task force he is leading as the Trump administration tries to show it is cracking down on potential abuse of welfare programs.
Vance said Friday before a closed-door task force meeting that the federal government has not taken the fraud problem seriously for decades and that it needs to be addressed with a “whole-of-government approach.”
“This is not just stealing money from the American people,” Vance said. “It’s also a theft of critical services that the American people rely on.”
President Donald Trump, a Republican, has made cracking down on fraud a top domestic concern as voters say they are concerned about affordability ahead of the November election. The effort comes after allegations of fraud involving day care centers run by Somali residents in Minneapolis spurred a massive crackdown on immigration in the Midwestern city, resulting in widespread protests.
Vance cited some of the Minnesota allegations on Friday. He held a press conference last month to announce a temporary freeze on some Medicaid funding until the state takes action that federal officials said will address their concerns.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat facing Vance as the 2024 vice presidential nominee, called it a “retaliation campaign” and said the Trump administration is “arming the entire federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota.”
The task force is also the most visible assignment so far given by Trump to Vance, who is considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
Vance and the task force, which includes about half the president’s cabinet, the leader of the Justice Department’s new fraud prosecution division and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson, are to meet regularly to look at rooting out potential fraud and waste in federal benefit programs.
Ferguson, who is vice chairman of the task force, called the fraud problem a dire crisis facing the country, saying it “undermines the social trust that these programs and our entire nation depend on.”
“So this fraud crisis is existential,” he said. “If we fail to resolve this, the fabric of our nation will quickly crumble.”
Colin McDonald, senior assistant to the second-in-command at the Department of Justice, joined the task force. He was recently confirmed as an assistant attorney general overseeing a new division in the department focused on prosecuting fraud.
The Justice Department has long prosecuted fraud domestically through its criminal division, but the Trump administration says the new division is needed to crack down on rampant fraud.
