Vice President JD Vance confirmed on Wednesday that he is working with the Justice and Treasury Departments to root out fraud nationwide.
During the State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Donald Trump announced Vance would lead the administration’s “war on fraud.”
“We will get it done,” the president said at one point during his lengthy speech. “And if we’re able to find enough of that fraud, we will actually have a balanced budget overnight.”
Vance shared more details on the federal anti-fraud initiative the following morning. While he doesn’t know the total amount of money stolen through fraud across the nation, the vice president intends to find out by collaborating with the DOJ and Treasury.
“The Department of Justice is going to be investigating and, where possible, throwing fraudsters in prison. But it’s also going to mean that [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent and some of our friends at the Treasury Department, we’re going to be looking at income tax records,” he told Fox News’s America’s Newsroom.
“We’re going to be trying to understand how it is that the American people have been defrauded, how it is that people have used resources and programs that should go to American citizens instead have been going to fraudulent uses,” he said.
In the interview, Vance asked how many illegal immigrants are benefiting from Medicaid and how many day care centers, like those accused of fraud in Minnesota, have been stealing money from the children they’re supposed to help. He also wondered whether any government officials were “complicit” in such fraud.
“The story of the American economy in so many ways during the Biden administration … is that the American citizen was ripped off for people who shouldn’t be here and by politicians who should have known better,” he continued. “The president has asked me to take a full, whole government approach to trying to understand that.”
Vance vowed that the Trump administration will work to combat fraud “very aggressively” this year. Minnesota, California, and other blue states are already facing federal scrutiny over alleged fraud.
READ IN FULL: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH
Trump’s announcement of the “war on fraud” comes one month after he nominated Colin McDonald to serve as the inaugural head of the DOJ’s newly created fraud enforcement division. Vance first announced the new post in early January.
McDonald faced questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday regarding his nomination by the president. Democrats were particularly critical of the nominee, expressing concerns about the anti-fraud unit targeting blue states, while Republicans welcomed the division’s creation.
