U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks next to Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz about combating fraud at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., U.S, February 25, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque REFILE - UPDATING SLUG
Observers blasted Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday after he announced the Trump administration's first moves in its new "war on fraud."
Vance said on Wednesday that the Trump administration is pausing certain Medicaid payments to Minnesota in response to allegations of fraud in the state's social services programs. Vance said the move was to ensure the state "takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people's tax money."
The announcement didn't sit well with observers and political analysts, some of whom described it as "murder" and "evil."
"So they found a different way to kill Minnesotans to satisfy Trump’s butthurt—because shooting them in the street wasn’t working fast enough," political writer Jim Stewartson posted on X. "All these people are all insane, depraved creatures who just need to be locked up and forgotten about forever."
"Really weird. That fancy JD from Yale and still @JDVance confused Medicaid fraudster Mississippi with Minnesota," journalist Marcy Wheeler posted on X.
"In what world is this legal?" New York sports reporter Jon Alba posted on X.
"The media should cover this as murder because it is," Jonathan Cohn, political director of Progressive Mass, posted on X.
"It’s not enough that this administration has gutted Medicaid across the nation—now, less than a day after launching the new 'War on Fraud' initiative, JD Vance is continuing the partisan assault on Minnesota by trying to stop further payments for HEALTH CARE," Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at the Chamber of Progress, posted on X.
"This is just evil and so corrupt," writer Polly Sigh posted on X.