President Donald Trump is putting Vice President JD Vance in charge of a wide-ranging effort to investigate what administration officials describe as an epidemic of “fraud” in states that have elected Democratic governors and did not vote for the Republican ticket in the 2024 presidential election — just as his star appears to be fading as a potential 2028 contender.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday told reporters that Trump will sign an executive order naming Vance as the point person on an “anti-fraud task force” which will “investigate fraud across the country.”
Vance is scheduled to join the president at an Oval Office signing ceremony to launch the task force later in the day on Monday.
The vice president’s new assignment continues a months-long White House effort to target Democratic strongholds with investigations and withhold federal funds from state and local governments in places where voters did not support the president in the last election.
In January, Vance announced that the White House was creating a new Assistant Attorney General position at the Department of Justice for the specific purpose of fighting what he described as “fraud” in places such as Minnesota, where a right-wing YouTube influencer’s viral video about Somali-run health care businesses led the Department of Homeland Security to surge thousands of immigration enforcement officers and agents to conduct roving patrols that resulted in two innocent Americans being gunned down.
The next month, Vance and Medicaid administrator Mehmet Oz said the White House would withhold $250m in Medicaid funds to Minnesota until the Democratic-led state government takes a series of “corrective actions” and affirmative steps” to find out whether Medicaid providers are actually providing services to Medicaid recipients.
There have been some high-profile cases of public benefits fraud in the North Star State in recent years, such as one in which the nonprofit Feeding Our Future was charged with submitting fraudulent documentation to obtain roughly $250m in Covid-19 pandemic aid during the Biden administration.
Federal prosecutors have also alleged that at least half more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 Minnesota-run programs since 2018 may have been stolen from federal programs supporting child nutrition, housing services and autism services.
The sprawling case has become politically and culturally fraught, as Somali Americans make up 82 of the 92 defendants charged so far, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota. But Trump has capitalized on that fact to target the Somalia diaspora in Minnesota, which has the largest Somali population in the U.S., as well as the state’s Democratic leadership — including Governor Tim Walz, who was the Democratic Party’s 2024 vice presidential nominee.
White House officials who spoke to The Independent on condition of anonymity say the administration’s new task force will look at other states with what they call “fraud problems,” including California and Maryland.
Both of those states are led by high-profile Democratic governors — Gavin Newsom and Wes Moore — who are also considered potential 2028 presidential contenders.
Vance’s new assignment could give him a perch from which he could attack his potential rivals ahead of the next presidential election — an election in which he was until recently considered the presumptive GOP frontrunner.
But in recent weeks, the Trump administration’s non-stop foreign policy focus has meant the VP has taken a backseat to his former Senate colleague turned potential rival, Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Last week, users on the prediction market site Kalshi decided that Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser, was their pick to win the GOP nomination two years from now.
A post on X by Kalshi showed Rubio leading at 19 percent, with Vice President JD Vance and California Governor Gavin Newsom both at 18 percent.
Polymarket, another prediction market platform, also revealed Tuesday morning that Rubio’s odds on the site hit an “all-time high,” though he remained several points behind Vance.
While there appears to be growing speculation about Rubio’s ambitions, the secretary of state has repeatedly expressed his support for Vance, who is widely seen as the front-runner for the Republican nomination should he choose to run.
“If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio said in a Vanity Fairinterview published late last year.
When asked about the 2028 election last summer, Rubio said Vance would make a “great nominee.”
“I think he’s doing a great job as vice president. He’s a close friend, and I hope he intends to do it. I know it’s kind of early,” he told Fox News’ Lara Trump. “But being in the role that I’m in here as the secretary of state, I really don’t play in politics.”
Trump has reportedly been phoning friends and associates to informally poll them on whether they believe Vance or Rubio should be his successor atop the party he has dominated for the last ten years.
