Vice President JD Vance, leading President Donald Trump’s “war on fraud,” is a plum opportunity for him to prove his mettle to Trump’s base before the 2028 Republican presidential primary.
Trump’s base has been outraged at the reports of rampant fraud in Minnesota, with the Justice Department alleging in December that half or more of the $18 billion in federal funds spent on 14 Minnesota-run programs for the likes of child nutrition, housing services, and autism since 2018 may have been stolen.
More than 80 Somali Americans have been charged for their part in the various scams, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota, including the Feeding Our Future scheme, first announced in 2022 when former President Joe Biden’s DOJ indicted 47 defendants for allegedly stealing $250 million that was intended to feed children during the pandemic.
It is against that background that Trump announced during his State of the Union this week that Vance would head an anti-fraud task force, with the vice president announcing the following day that the administration is withholding more than $250 million in Medicaid funds from Minnesota until Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) provides a plan to respond to the fraud.
Vance’s action against Minnesota was followed on Thursday by Walz introducing state legislation to improve oversight of Minnesota’s programs and detect fraud, in addition to increasing enforcement and penalties by expanding audits and internal controls, including using technology to identify suspicious billing earlier and recover overpayments faster.
Delivering in the role could result in a political win for Vance before the 2028 primary, but it also poses a political risk, particularly if the vice president continues to concentrate on Medicaid and Democrats successfully caricature him for hampering access to healthcare for poor people, as the party has for all Republicans since the passage of Obamacare.
Democratic strategist Garry South drew parallels between Vance’s appointment and Biden’s naming former Vice President Kamala Harris as border czar, though Harris remained adamant that she was merely responsible for addressing the root causes of migration.
“How did that work out for her?” South asked the Washington Examiner. “[The late President George H.W. Bush] assigned [former Vice President] Dan Quayle to head up deregulation. That really served him well. Instead of being known for reducing the red tape that businesses faced, he instead became a national laughing stock because of his gaffes and blunders, including misspelling ‘potato’ to a bunch of school kids.”
South added: “It might give vice presidents their jollies by being given a special title and role by the president, but it more often comes back to bite them rather than sending them on a path to the White House.”
But University of Minnesota research fellow and Minnesota Historical Election Archive curator Eric Ostermeier disagreed.
For Ostermeier, Vance and Republicans are always prepared for Democrats to criticize them for “cutting or denying” healthcare access, “whether or not they make a serious attempt to expose fraud in various programs and states across the country.”
“That is already baked into the partisan cake for 2028,” the Smart Politics author and founder said. “What Vance has now is a political opportunity to score points not only with the Republican base, but also independents and fiscally-minded Democratic voters who may not take the bait so quickly and, in fact, would welcome a bona fide investigation and the removal of unqualified recipients out of these various programs, whether due to willful fraud, or the incompetent state administration of federal funds, such as Medicaid.”
He continued: “The risk seems slight, and the potential for gain is as large as the seriousness of the fraud task force’s effort and the actual extent of fraud waiting to be discovered.”
Republican strategist Duf Sundheim agreed that Vance’s role could be an opportunity for him to “reconnect with the themes that defined Hillbilly Elegy: dignity of work, resentment toward perceived unfairness in the welfare system, and the moral argument that assistance should support the truly vulnerable, not subsidize dependency or fraud.”
“If he can clearly frame his effort as protecting Medicare for seniors and low-income Americans by rooting out abuse — not cutting legitimate benefits — he could strengthen his credibility with the Republican base,” Sundheim told the Washington Examiner.
Sundheim underscored that, “historically,” arguments regarding fraud and fairness have “resonated strongly” within the Republican Party.
“Welfare reform was a major pillar in [former President Ronald] Reagan’s success,” he said. “Vance has been spending a lot of time on areas new to him. This is a core issue to him personally and could significantly improve his image to a significant percentage not only of the base, but of the American public.”
But prior to 2028, University of Minnesota Center for the Study of Politics director Larry Jacobs argued that Vance’s appointment could have political risks before the 2026 midterm elections, with those contests poised to be “a referendum on affordability.”
“Republican strategists calculate that attacking fraud will weaken the appeal to voters of Democratic candidates who run on improving affordability,” Jacobs told the Washington Examiner. “In a campaign battle between the tangible pain of voters who have had to cut back on essentials because of the high cost of living or Republican partisans shouting about fraud, the concrete will win out over rhetoric.”
Regardless, Trump described Minnesota as a “stunning example” of where “corruption” is “plundering America” during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
“Members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,” he said. “This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe. So tonight, although it started four months ago, I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great Vice President, JD Vance.”
Trump then predicted that if Vance can “find enough” fraud, the administration would “have a balanced budget overnight.”
“The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception,” he said. “Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the USA, and it is the American people who pay the price… We’re going to take care of this problem. We are not playing games.”
Trump’s comments prompted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to respond: “That’s a lie!”
After Vance’s announcement at the White House on Wednesday regarding Minnesota and its Medicaid funds, the vice president traveled to Plover, Wisconsin, and told a crowd at a machining facility: “When you go to the polls in November, I want you to think: Who is going to protect my money from fraudsters?”
“What was happening is that Somali fraudsters, many of whom were illegal immigrants, shouldn’t have been in this country to begin with, you had Somali fraudsters who were saying that their kids were autistic, even though they weren’t,” Vance said. “So what happens? You get poorer, your tax dollars go to Somali fraudsters, and worst of all, you’ve got special needs kids in American communities that we ought to be helping, and instead of helping them, we’re helping fraudsters who don’t have the problem to begin with.”
HERE ARE TRUMP’S TOP PROMISES FROM HIS 2026 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
Vance’s more policy-oriented position can be compared to that of Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald, whom Trump and the vice president announced in January as the Assistant Attorney General for National Fraud Enforcement.
McDonald is responsible for leading the Department of Justice’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division, which oversees investigations and criminal enforcement.
Discount Applied Successfully!
Your savings have been added to the cart.