JD Vance leads first fraud task force meeting at White House

[12:52] good to see everybody. Hell, we have half the cabinet here. We could have just done a cabinet [12:55] meeting. It's good to see everybody and good to see the press this morning. So we're going to say [13:00] a few words and then kick you guys out for the interesting part, which will be the closed door [13:04] meeting. First of all, great to have our new DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen here. Great to have [13:10] Colin McDonald here, who has been confirmed but not yet sworn into his new position at the [13:15] Department of Justice. And I would say that's maybe the most exciting thing that's actually [13:19] happened on the Fraud Task Force is the fact that we now have a leader on the anti-fraud side at DOJ [13:25] who's going to work with the task force, who's going to use the resources that we're putting [13:29] together to make sure that we really supercharge this anti-fraud effort. So let me just say a few [13:34] things about this and then I want to kick it over to Andrew. Oh, hello, Brooke. Brooke's alarm [13:40] clock didn't go off this morning. So here's the basic problem that we've had in this government [13:48] going back for probably 30 or 40 years. [13:51] Is that you've never had an administration that has really taken this seriously until the [13:56] president put us really from day one of the Trump administration who said we have to take the fraud [14:01] issue seriously. And a lot of the anti-fraud protections that existed in our government for [14:08] a very long time were actually turned off by the Biden administration. So we think fraud has been [14:11] a problem for a long time. It became a massive, massive problem under the Biden administration. [14:16] We're going to do a number of things. First of all, we're going to turn back on those anti-fraud [14:21] protections that have been put on the ground floor. We're going to talk about why these [14:24] cabinet officials are looking at what's going on and focusing on it. The second thing is that we're [14:28] going to take a whole of government approach. So much of what's going to make the anti-fraud task [14:33] force work is that we're communicating across different departments. So when Bobby Kennedy is [14:39] talking to Scott Besant about things that he's seeing in Medicare and Medicaid, when Scott is [14:43] seeing things at Treasury, when Brooke is seeing things at agriculture, when Scott is seeing things [14:48] at housing and urban development, what we're going to actually do is force the bureaucracy to take this [14:51] seriously and work together as political principles to make sure that we stop [14:56] allowing fraudsters to steal the American people's money and that brings [15:00] me to my final point before I'll kick it over to Andrew who is who is leading [15:04] this anti-fraud task force this is not just theft of the American people's [15:08] money this is also theft of critical services that the American people rely [15:13] on some of you heard me tell the story before but I think that the the autism [15:18] scam that we've seen in the Somalian parts of Minnesota really illustrates [15:23] well what's been going on across whole layers of our government so you have a [15:27] program set up under Medicaid to help autistic children and their families get [15:31] the resources that they need because of course we know that when you have a kid [15:35] who's on the spectrum it requires a little bit more help a little bit more [15:38] services and so the government you know enforcing the mandate from the American [15:43] people to be kind and compassionate to our citizens has set up this program to [15:48] help [15:48] families who are dealing with these particular struggles now what we've [15:51] seen is Somali fraudsters at an industrial scale taking advantage of [15:57] that program to the tune of millions and millions of dollars and there are two [16:01] separate tragedies there the first tragedy is that you have people who pay [16:05] into the federal government who pay into the IRS who pay their taxes expecting [16:11] that those taxes will go to help their fellow citizens and it's not going there [16:15] it's going to help fraudsters that's tragedy number one [16:18] and the more important tragedy is that you have families who need these [16:21] services who are unable to get them because people are getting rich off of [16:26] fraud schemes instead of making sure that autistic children and their [16:30] families get access to these resources and unfortunately that story while it's [16:34] very concrete and very obvious what we're seeing in Minneapolis it is [16:38] replayed again and again and again across many states and across many [16:43] different programs it has to stop the President United States has ordered us to [16:47] stop it and that's what this program is about. [16:48] This is what this task force is going to do so without further ado I'll kick it over to [16:51] Andrew who will talk about some of our work here today but the most exciting [16:55] thing is that this task force is finally stood up we've got allies at Department [17:00] of Justice now we're going to take this thing by the horns we've got allies [17:04] across every major significant department and we are going to stop the [17:09] fraud that's being committed against the American people. Andrew. [17:12] Thank you Mr. Vice President I'd like to begin by thanking President Trump and [17:16] the Vice President for the confidence they put in me to help [17:18] lead the task force. America is the most generous nation in the history of the [17:22] world for decades Americans have turned over trillions of their tax dollars to [17:27] social welfare programs to help their neighbors and fellow citizens through [17:30] hard times. They've done so on the basis of social trust the belief that their [17:35] government state and federal will do the right things with their dollars and that [17:38] their fellow citizens will honestly participate in these programs. Fraud [17:43] shreds the social trust on which these programs and our entire nation depend. [17:48] The crisis is thus existential if we fail to address it the fabric of our nation [17:53] will swiftly unravel and the American people feel like they are getting ripped [17:57] off and they're right. As the president's executive order establishing this task [18:01] force declared extensive undetected fraud can only exist in a system that [18:06] ignores it and fraud is indeed easy to ignore when grasping politicians are in [18:11] on the con. For years the Biden administration and its allies and [18:15] Democrat run states knew of this corruption and our federal benefits. [18:18] programs and did nothing about it. Their failures have robbed every American [18:22] citizen of their tax dollars but even worse they've deprived American citizens [18:27] who actually need these services. Every dollar diverted to a fake hospice or fake [18:32] autism center every dollar paid to an upcoding hospital deprives an American [18:37] citizen who needs these essential services. Fraud therefore wounds the [18:41] neediest among us the very people that Americans want to help when they fund [18:46] our social welfare programs. [18:48] Finally we have a president who is doing something about this corruption [18:52] crisis. We are here today because President Trump and Vice President Vance [18:56] won't ignore it. And we won't ignore the public officials who have [19:00] facilitated it. Our work on this task force will be to develop a [19:04] comprehensive national strategy to combat the corruption of our federal [19:07] benefits programs and to assist the Department of Justice in prosecuting [19:11] those who have corrupted them. In doing so we will restore the social trust that [19:15] has been lost because of mismanagement and fraud. [19:19] The presence today of so many members of the president's cabinet including the [19:23] vice president himself is a testimony to the importance of our work and its [19:27] priority in this administration. Together we can remove the scourge of fraud in [19:32] our federal benefits programs and we can restore public confidence in their [19:36] efficacy and integrity. I look forward to our important work and with that I'll [19:40] turn it over to Stephen Miller. [19:44] Thank you Andrew and thank you to the vice president for your leadership in [19:50] establishing this task force. [19:52] And for gathering us all here today and I have some personal behind the scenes [19:57] experience with talking to the vice president and seeing how resolutely [20:03] determined he was at the very first exposure of some of these shocking [20:08] discoveries to create establish and launch this task force. And if you knew [20:15] what I knew about the people at this table you would understand just how [20:20] committed [20:22] this government this administration is to ending this massive theft of American [20:27] taxpayer dollars. The people at this table are all united in absolute [20:32] determination to stop this plague of fraud criminality and abuse. I think [20:39] what's important for Americans to understand about how pervasive and [20:43] widespread the fraud is is that all of our systems were set up and established [20:47] for a high trust society. I think that most citizens probably assume that [20:54] there's some verification process that takes place for the receipt of most federal benefits. [21:00] The reality is that there is not. This is particularly true in blue states, willfully [21:05] true in blue states. In which all of these programs are operated entirely on the honor [21:11] system. No verification takes place before individuals are enrolled in or receive these [21:16] benefits. So as a simple example, if you're a Somali refugee living in Minnesota, you [21:23] could lie about how many children they have and that's not true. You could lie about [21:24] children you have you could lie about what your immigration status is you [21:28] could lie about your marital status you could lie about child care you could lie [21:33] about disability you could lie about all these things and many more and nobody in [21:37] the state of Minnesota would validate any of these facts before writing you a [21:40] check we at the federal government are simply sent a bill from the state of [21:46] Minnesota for the cost of providing these services in the aggregate so to [21:50] take the food stamp program as an example SNAP and that of course is [21:56] administered by Secretary Rollins we do not know the names of any SNAP [22:00] recipients in the state of Minnesota we just get a blank check we have asked the [22:06] state repeatedly and tried to compel the state unsuccessfully to turn over their [22:11] SNAP enrollment rules so we could ascertain such basic facts as are these [22:16] people even legally eligible to receive these benefits and the state has refused [22:21] absolutely [22:21] absolutely [22:22] categorically refused and in fact the state has spent millions of dollars in [22:25] court for the singular purpose of trying to prevent the state from ascertaining [22:30] the identity of a single SNAP recipient in the entire state of Minnesota think [22:35] about what this does to public trust social trust people's faith in the [22:39] system right imagine in the community a working-class community in the Twin [22:44] Cities say a native Minnesotan who works as a lineman or works as a [22:52] construction worker works in any job that requires hard work dedication focus [22:57] who's worried about his ability to support for provide his family and then [23:01] imagine that he has a neighbor who's a Somali refugee who arrived two years ago [23:06] and has a Mercedes and no financial stress and no worries at all the entire [23:12] world that never seems to ever go to work at all because he just went to an [23:16] office in the state lied on a piece of paper and got unlimited free money forever for life [23:22] that is the system that is being run and that is the corruption that this task [23:26] force under the leadership of the vice president is going to demolish and I'll [23:30] just conclude by saying that I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the atrocity [23:36] that is taking place in Congress with congressional Democrats fighting [23:40] relentlessly to abolish the very federal agencies that are responsible for [23:45] policing and investigating fraud as well as all matters of homeland and national [23:49] security I see of course a new secretary who [23:52] has just been confirmed to DHS my good friend Mark Wayne Mullen he now takes [23:57] command of a department whose men and women have been working without pay for [24:02] weeks on end to protect and defend the American people to protect and defend [24:07] our coastlines to protect and defend our families well they've been treated with [24:11] nothing but derision hatred and contempt by congressional Democrats it is [24:15] legislative terrorism it is one of the greatest abominations that has ever [24:19] occurred in the history of this country and it's to the everlasting and eternal [24:22] shame of the [24:22] Democrat Party again thank you Mr Vice President for your leadership and [24:26] vision and establishing this task force I'm proud to serve on and under your [24:30] leadership thank you thank you Stephen thanks everybody we're not going to take [24:33] questions because we have some very important work to do but we will [24:36] certainly do some press events in the future thank you all