President Trump made combating fraud–notably in Democratic not Republican states–a key part of his State of the Union address, saying that it will be a major focus of his administration in coming months. He even gave Vice President JD Vance a new role: Anti-Fraud czar.
“So tonight,” Trump said, “I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great Vice President JD Vance.” There’s a fraught history of vice presidents taking on these types of roles: Vice President Kamala Harris struggled with her “border czar” role that President Joe Biden bestowed up on her.
President Trump said he expects his administration will root out more fraud like the kind federal investigators have been examining in Minnesota. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in December were deployed en masse to Minnesota on the heels of a welfare-fraud scandal in which many of the people convicted have been of Somali descent. The federal presence touched off widespread protests.
