Vice President JD Vance said at Friday’s cabinet meeting that the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, of which he is chair, has identified $230 billion in fraud and prevented $56 billion in fraudulent payments.
Speaking after President Donald Trump at the first-ever televised cabinet meeting from Camp David, Vance provided an update on the efforts of the task force which is implementing a whole-of-government approach in its war on fraud.
“Just since the beginning of the fraud task force that I started under the president’s leadership and direction, we have identified $230 billion dollars of fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American people, and we have halted already $56 billion dollars of that,” he said.
“It’s sometimes hard once the money has already gone out the door; it’s hard to get it back. But stopping it from going out the door is how we save the American people $56 billion. Of course, we’re going to keep on working on that,” he added.
Vance said that the task force is announcing even more actions today to combat fraudsters.
“Just today, Mr. President, we will announce 17 new anti-fraud actions that will total about a third of a billion dollars, and that’s added to the $230 billion that we’ve already uncovered,” he said.
Vance stressed that fraud has two victims, one being the taxpayers whose money is being stolen, and second, the people who were actually supposed to benefit from the program miss out due to fraudulent claims:
So, to give one concrete example, there is a program that is administered by Medicaid, and that program ensures that low-income moms and low-income babies have access to neonatal care. And, I think most Americans probably share my view, this is one of the great things about the United States of America, that if we see a baby and we see a young mother that requires help, we help our fellow Americans. That’s a good thing. It’s something that we should be proud of. And yet, there is a program that has defrauded the moms and the babies who benefit from these. You’ve gotten people who’ve gotten rich by setting up false companies that are providing false services. So who loses in that equation? Number one, of course, is the American taxpayer that is $230 billion poorer because the fraud that this country has let go on. But I actually think most importantly is that we’ve seen that program run out of money. So we’ve seen moms and babies unable to access the healthcare that they need because the fraudsters have gotten rich. That is a disgrace. And until the president ordered us to stop it, no one was doing anything about it.
Trump likened Vance to Eliot Ness who took on Al Capone’s bootlegging syndicate during Prohibition.
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