Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that the Trump administration is temporarily halting Medicaid funding to the state of Minnesota, giving Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz 60 days to clean up how the state doles out funding. 

‘We have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money,’ Vance said Wednesday in a press event attended by Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz. 

The announcement comes after President Donald Trump railed against fraud in the Gopher State Tuesday evening in his State of the Union address. 

The administration and Congress have zeroed in on rampant abuse of federal taxpayers’ funds since December 2025, when details of Minnesota’s fraud surrounding social programs and welfare programs stretching back to the COVID-19 pandemic first came under the national spotlight. Investigators have since estimated the Minnesota scheme could top $9 billion. 

Trump pointed to his vice president as leading the administration’s ‘war on fraud’ amid his State of the Union remarks. 

Vance explained Wednesday that ‘we are stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American taxpayer.’

The vice president continued that officials have verified that a program in Minnesota intended to provide after-school care to autistic children actually benefited fraudsters. 

‘A lot of people are getting rich off the generosity of American taxpayers,’ Vance said. ‘But more fundamentally, and more importantly than that, it means that there are kids in Minnesota who deserve these services, who need these services, and they’re not going to those kids. They’re going to fraudsters in Minneapolis. That is unacceptable. And that’s the sort of thing that we’re cutting off with this action today.’ 

Oz added that it is that the pause marks ‘the largest action against fraud that we’ve ever taken’ at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, before launching into how the administration is deferring funds to the state.

‘It’s going to be $259 million of deferred payments for Medicaid to Minnesota, which we’re announcing as I speak, to Governor Walz and his team,’ Oz said. ‘That’s based on an audit of the last three months of 2025. Restated: a quarter billion dollars is not going to be paid this month to Minnesota for its Medicaid claims.’ 

‘We have notified the state and said that we will give them the money, but we’re going to hold it and only release it after they propose and act on a comprehensive corrective action plan to solve the problem,’ Oz said. ‘If Minnesota fails to clean up the systems, the state will rack up $1 billion of deferred payments this year.’

Walz has 60 days to respond to a letter Oz and the administration sent to Walz on the matter, Oz said. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Walz’s office Wednesday afternoon for comment and has yet to receive a reply. 

Oz continued that he believes Walz will take the matter seriously, and noted fraud is not exclusive to Minnesota, but also other states. 

‘These schemes disproportionately involve immigrant communities,’ Oz continued. ‘They’re insulated, they’re able to … organize efforts, and sometimes they don’t understand what’s going on.’ 

Vance added that the administration does not want to make this move, but it is needed due to Minnesota being ‘careless with federal tax dollars.’

‘All we need the governor and the administration of Minnesota to do is something quite simple, which is to show that before you give Medicaid funds to somebody, you’re taking seriously whether they provided the services that they say that they’re providing,’ the vice president said, calling the fraud a ‘disgrace.’

Trump spotlighted the fraud in his State of the Union address Tuesday, underscoring that while Minnesota has taken the spotlight, schemes run deep in other states as well. 

‘When it comes to the corruption that is plundering — it really, it’s plundering America — there’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,’ Trump said. ‘Oh, we have all the information.’ 

‘And in actuality, the number is much higher than that, and California, Massachusetts, Maine and many other states are even worse. This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe,’ he continued, before naming Vance as the administration leader taking on fraud. 

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin were involved in a heated back and forth during a Senate hearing Tuesday that sparked immediate reactions across social media.

‘Everybody we bring up here, you guys chastised for trying to make changes,’ Mullin said during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing on Wednesday. The committee was discussing issues with Obamacare during a hearing on the nomination of Casey Means as U.S. Surgeon General.

‘God forbid we change and try to fix our broken system,’ Mullin continued. ‘Anyway, I ranted too long.’

As Mullin was attempting to return to the topic, he was cut off by Sanders, who said, ‘Yes, you did.’

Mullin responded, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t ask your opinion on that and if I cared about your opinion I would ask you. But I don’t care about your opinion. You’re part of the system. You’re part of the problem. You’ve been sitting here longer than I’ve even been alive. This is your problem. You should have fixed this a long time ago. You’ve been railing on it for so long. What have you been doing?’

Sanders responded by sarcastically saying, ‘I decided not to run for surgeon general, you’re the nominee I’ve decided.’

‘That is definitely something we would never accept,’ Mullin said before moving on.

The exchange was quickly picked up by conservatives on social media, including from ‘Charlie Kirk Show’ executive producer Andrew Kolvet, who wrote in a post on X that ‘things did not end well for the octogenarian socialist’ after he took a ‘cheap shot’ at Mullin. 

‘That’s what his commie supporters can’t figure out,’ comedian Tim Young posted on X. ‘Bernie has been in office so long that he should have solved their problems by now.’

‘Finally,’ journalist Anna Matson posted on X. ‘Someone put Bernie Sanders in his place. He’s all talk and no action. He’s been in office longer than I’ve been alive and he has nothing to show for it.’

‘Swamp being DRAINED,’ political and sports commentator Dan Dakich posted on X.

‘HOLY SMOKES,’ conservative journalist Eric Daughterty posted on X. ‘Sen. Markwayne Mullin just PUMMELED Bernie Sanders to his FACE.’

Senate clashes involving Sanders and Mullin have been increasingly common in recent years, including a viral moment in 2023 when Mullin and Teamsters President Sean O’Brien almost came to blows during an exchange Sanders was in the middle of. 

This past December, the two clashed on the Senate floor, also over Obamacare, in an exchange that Mullin posted on X in which he referred to Sanders as ‘The Grinch’ and said the Vermont senator ‘blocked our bipartisan bill, the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act, to give kids fighting cancer more treatment options.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the offices of Mullin and Sanders for comment.

The crackdown on fraud in Minnesota will serve as a blueprint for a new Department of Justice office focused on protecting taxpayer funds from scams, President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as the nation’s ‘fraud czar’ explained in his nomination hearing Wednesday. 

‘The work in Minnesota has been pivotal. The work of the U.S. Attorney’s office there, and the personnel there, has been pivotal to highlighting the problems of fraud that permeate our taxpayer funded programs,’ nominee to serve as assistant attorney general for a new Justice Department division tasked with rooting out fraud, Colin McDonald, said Wednesday. 

‘That sort of effort … is what the National Fraud Enforcement Division will be looking to do and scale to an extent that we’ve not seen before within the Department of Justice,’ he continued. 

Trump tapped McDonald as the nominee in January, just days after establishing the Department of Justice’s new division for national fraud enforcement that will ‘investigate, prosecute, and remedy fraud affecting the Federal government,’ according to the White House. The new office follows a sweeping Minnesota fraud scandal, where hundreds of millions of dollars was allegedly swindled from taxpayers through welfare and social services programs.

‘I will be working with the inspectors general community,’ McDonald continued. ‘With our federal agencies and federal partners, with our state and local partners to ensure that we find the fraud where it’s occurring and that we have the resources to prosecute it, to investigate it and prosecute it, and ultimately ensure that the fraud that we’re seeing annually, perpetrated against these programs comes to an end.’

McDonald appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning, where lawmakers grilled the nominee about the new office, how it will operate and if it will operate independently of the White House. 

Trump delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday evening and announced Vice President JD Vance will lead the administration’s ‘war on fraud.’ 

McDonald explained that his office will work to tackle all fraud bleeding taxpayers, citing Government Accountability Office data that estimates between $320 billion to $520 billion in taxpayer funds is lost to fraud on an annual basis. 

‘My commitment is to work tirelessly to build a division, a national fraud enforcement division, where no fraud is too big for the Department of Justice, and no fraud is too small for the Department of Justice,’ he continued. 

At the top of lawmakers’ minds were fraud concerns surrounding Obamacare and senior citizens. 

Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn cited that the Government Accountability Office could not reconcile over $21 billion in Obamacare marketplace subsidies in tax year 2023 during his questioning of McDonald. 

‘I commit to working tirelessly to root out the sort of fraud that you’ve identified there, and to make sure that every single dollar that’s supposed to go to these programs actually goes to the programs, to the beneficiaries, the intended beneficiaries of these programs, and not to fraudsters. That is my commitment,’ McDonald told Cornyn during the hearing regarding potential fraud surrounding Affordable Care Act subsidies. 

Scams targeting the elderly also took the spotlight throughout the hearing. Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed McDonald on his efforts to protect seniors from scams, noting that America’s seniors lose $28 billion annually to financial schemes. 

The fraud czar nominee pledged that the DOJ would work to protect seniors from the increasingly high-tech scams, which often include using artificial intelligence to confuse and swindle people, noting that the fraud affects entire families. 

‘It’s not just the grandmothers and the grandfathers, it’s also their family members who bear the weight of these scams and the fraud that’s perpetrated against them,’ he said. ‘My grandmother, one of them, turns 89 years old in two days. And she has seen these … sorts of efforts toward her. And it’s a major issue that the Department of Justice is focused on, and we will be using all available tools to ensure that we combat that problem.’

The massive Minnesota fraud case has reverberated across the nation, with federal Republican lawmakers reinvigorating calls to tighten and monitor the release of taxpayer funds to various programs, most notably social and welfare offices. 

Trump spotlighted the fraud in his State of the Union address Tuesday, claiming the scams are even worse in states such as California, Massachusetts, Maine.’ 

‘When it comes to the corruption that is plundering — it really, it’s plundering America — there’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer. Oh, we have all the information,’ Trump said Tuesday. 

‘And in actuality, the number is much higher than that, and California, Massachusetts, Maine and many other states are even worse. This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe,’ he continued, before naming Vance as the administration leader taking on fraud. 

The White House referred Fox Digital to Trump’s State of the Union comments and McDonald’s testimony when approached for additional comment on the federal fraud crackdown efforts. 

Vance joined Fox News’ ‘America’s Newsroom’ Wednesday, and said his efforts will include a ‘full, whole government approach’ to investigating fraud concerns, and enlisting the Justice and Treasury Departments to lead probe on fiscal records. 

‘There’s a whole host of tools that we have that have never been used, and the president and I talked about this a couple of months ago and said, ‘What if we just did everything that we could to stop the fraud that’s being committed against the American taxpayer?’ The president said, ‘Great idea, let’s do it,’ and we’re going to work on that very aggressively over the next year,’ Vance said. 

As President Donald Trump vowed to wage a ‘war on fraud’ during his State of the Union address Tuesday, a panel of voters across the political spectrum had mixed reactions.

The panel, assembled by polling group Maslansky + Partners and comprising 29 Democrats, 30 independents and 41 Republicans, gave real-time reactions as Trump spoke. The reactions were displayed on a line graph where high values represented positive reactions and low values indicated negative reactions.

Trump said corruption was ‘plundering America’ and said the most ‘stunning example’ was in Minnesota, where welfare fraud has been a focal point and a child nutrition program scheme, in particular, led to dozens of prosecutions under the Biden administration.

A line graph showed Republican voters were receptive as Trump spoke, while Democratic voters had a negative reaction and independents were neutral.

‘Members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,’ Trump said, an apparent reference to the potential cost of Medicaid fraud in the state since 2018, as revealed by a Minnesota federal prosecutor last year. 

While it is unclear what links the Somali community has to the Medicaid claim, the vast majority of defendants in the separate $250 million child nutrition program fraud findings were of Somali descent.

Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has said Trump is ‘demonizing’ the Somali community, that Trump’s claims about his state are overstated and a political distraction and that the president is the ‘biggest fraudster.’

Trump contended during his speech that California, Massachusetts, Maine and ‘many other states’ were ‘even worse’ than Minnesota.

The White House has taken a multi-agency approach to its fraud initiative, giving the Departments of Justice, Treasury, Health and Human Services and others roles in identifying abuse of welfare systems across the country.

‘This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe,’ Trump said. ‘So, tonight, although it started four months ago, I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great vice president, JD Vance.’

Trump claimed that if the administration could find enough fraud, ‘we will actually have a balanced budget overnight.’

‘It’ll go very quickly,’ Trump said. ‘That’s the kind of money you’re talking about. We’ll balance our budget.’

Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that the Trump administration is temporarily halting Medicaid funding to the state of Minnesota, giving Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz 60 days to clean up how the state doles out funding. 

‘We have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money,’ Vance said Wednesday at a press event attended by Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The announcement was made after President Donald Trump railed against fraud in the Gopher State Tuesday evening in his State of the Union address. 

The administration and Congress have zeroed in on rampant abuse of federal taxpayers’ funds since December 2025, when details of Minnesota’s fraud relating to social and welfare programs stretching back to the COVID-19 pandemic first came under the national spotlight. Investigators have since estimated the Minnesota scheme could top $9 billion. 

Trump pointed to his vice president as leading the administration’s ‘war on fraud’ during his State of the Union remarks. 

Vance explained Wednesday that ‘we are stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American taxpayer.’

The vice president added that officials have verified that a program in Minnesota intended to provide after-school care to autistic children actually benefited fraudsters. 

‘A lot of people are getting rich off the generosity of American taxpayers,’ Vance said. ‘But more fundamentally, and more importantly than that, it means that there are kids in Minnesota who deserve these services, who need these services, and they’re not going to those kids. They’re going to fraudsters in Minneapolis. That is unacceptable. And that’s the sort of thing that we’re cutting off with this action today.’ 

Oz added that the pause marks ‘the largest action against fraud that we’ve ever taken’ at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, before launching into how the administration is deferring funds to the state.

‘It’s going to be $259 million of deferred payments for Medicaid to Minnesota, which we’re announcing, as I speak, to Gov. Walz and his team,’ Oz said. ‘That’s based on an audit of the last three months of 2025. Restated, a quarter billion dollars is not going to be paid this month to Minnesota for its Medicaid claims.

‘We have notified the state and said that we will give them the money, but we’re going to hold it and only release it after they propose and act on a comprehensive corrective action plan to solve the problem,’ Oz said. ‘If Minnesota fails to clean up the systems, the state will rack up $1 billion of deferred payments this year.’

Walz has 60 days to respond to a letter Oz and the administration sent to Walz on the matter, Oz said. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Walz’s office Wednesday afternoon for comment and has yet to receive a reply. 

Oz said he believes Walz will take the matter seriously and noted fraud is not exclusive to Minnesota. 

‘These schemes disproportionately involve immigrant communities,’ Oz continued. ‘They’re insulated, they’re able to … organize efforts, and sometimes they don’t understand what’s going on.’ 

Vance added that the administration does not want to make this move, but it is needed due to Minnesota being ‘careless with federal tax dollars.’

‘All we need the governor and the administration of Minnesota to do is something quite simple, which is to show that before you give Medicaid funds to somebody, you’re taking seriously whether they provided the services that they say that they’re providing,’ the vice president said, calling the alleged fraud a ‘disgrace.’

Trump spotlighted the fraud in his State of the Union address Tuesday, underscoring that while Minnesota has taken the spotlight, schemes run deep in other states as well. 

‘When it comes to the corruption that is plundering — it really, it’s plundering America — there’s been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,’ Trump said. ‘Oh, we have all the information.

‘And, in actuality, the number is much higher than that, and California, Massachusetts, Maine and many other states are even worse. This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn’t believe,’ Trump added, before naming Vance the administration’s leader taking on fraud. 

Russian-operated shadow tankers carrying millions of dollars in sanctioned oil are transiting the English Channel, raising warnings of a potential military confrontation in NATO waters, according to reports.

The movements came amid heightened tensions between Russia and NATO, with the Royal Navy stepping up surveillance of U.S.- and allied-sanctioned vessels in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Sky News reported Wednesday that as many as 800 shadow tankers had passed through the channel, and continue to bankroll Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Several Russia-linked oil tankers — including the Rigel, Hyperion and Kousai — have been tracked by VesselFinder and are known to be under Western sanctions.

The outlet reported that three of the vessels were monitored this month as they transited loaded with sanctioned crude.

The Rigel, an 885-foot Suezmax-class tanker sailing under a Cameroonian flag, left the Russian port of Primorsk on Feb. 2, with up to one million barrels of oil, a cargo valued at around $55 million.

Sanctioned by the U.K., the EU and Canada, it is barred from using port facilities in those jurisdictions but is still permitted ‘innocent passage’ under maritime law.

The Kousai, sailing under a Sierra Leonean flag, left Ust-Luga on Feb. 2, and was warned by authorities to provide proof of insurance within 24 hours.

The Hyperion, also sanctioned by the U.S., switched flags after delivering oil to Venezuela, to obscure ownership and evade enforcement, according to reports.

Security experts warned of an increased risk of geopolitical escalation in the region.

]Professor Michael Clarke told Sky News that there may come a point when Britain and its allies ‘get much tougher with these Russian ships,’ adding that a ‘militarized confrontation at sea’ this year is a real possibility, in the Channel or the North Sea.

A U.K. Ministry of Defense (MoD) spokesperson said: ‘Deterring, disrupting and degrading the Russian shadow fleet is a priority for this government.

‘Alongside our allies, we are stepping up our response to shadow vessels — and as the Secretary of State set out, we will continue to do so,’ the spokesperson said.

The MoD said it has requested proof of insurance from more than 600 suspected vessels since October 2024.

The U.S. has also taken a firm stance, seizing at least seven tankers linked to sanctioned oil trades since December 2025, including several in the Caribbean.

The FBI subpoenaed Kash Patel and Susie Wiles’ phone records in 2022 and 2023, when both were private citizens, as part of a federal probe into then former President Donald Trump, Fox News has confirmed.

Patel is the current FBI director, and Wiles is White House chief of staff.

At least 10 FBI employees were fired Wednesday, Fox News has been told. Names were not given due to privacy reasons.

Reuters first disclosed the subpoenas, which were issued during the Biden administration, while special counsel Jack Smith was investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Smith ended up charging Trump in 2023 with multiple felony offenses related to alleged efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election and Trump’s handling of the documents after he left office.

A federal judge later dismissed the election interference case after Smith moved to drop it following Trump’s re-election, citing a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. 

Smith also dropped the Justice Department’s appeal of a separate ruling that dismissed the classified documents case. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in both matters.

In a statement to Fox News Wednesday, Patel called the move to seize the phone records ‘outrageous and deeply alarming.’ 

‘It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records — along with those of now White House chief of staff Susie Wiles — using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight,’ he said.

The FBI had found the phone records in files labeled as ‘Prohibited,’ Reuters reported.

Patel also said he recently ended the FBI’s ability to categorize files as ‘Prohibited.’

Fox News also learned from two FBI officials that in 2023, FBI agents recorded a phone call between Wiles and her attorney.

According to those officials, Wiles’ attorney was aware the call was being recorded and consented, but Wiles was not informed.

Smith testified last year that records of members’ calls helped investigators verify the timeline of events surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

He said prosecutors ‘followed all legal requirements in getting those records’ and told a House panel the records obtained from lawmakers did not include the content of conversations, Reuters reported.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Prominent figures from across the media, business and political landscapes showed up as guests to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday evening.

Notable attendees included Erika Kirk, the widowed wife of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, David Ellison, the media mogul and CEO of Paramount, and Kevin O’Leary, the Shark Tank media personality and businessman.

Several of the more notable attendees were highlighted by Trump during his address.

Kirk received a mention from the president as he condemned political violence of all kinds in his address.

‘We must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God, and we must totally reject political violence of any kind,’ Trump said.

Charlie Kirk, who was just 31-years-old at the time of his death, was killed by a gunman on Sept. 10, 2025, while conducting a political debate event at Utah Valley University.

The U.S. men’s hockey team also made an appearance on Tuesday, receiving praise from Trump fresh off their gold medal victory in the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

‘Congratulations to team U.S.A.,’ Trump said as the players streamed into the chamber during the address.

Trump also highlighted guests brought by others, like First Lady Melania Trump. She invited 10-year-old Everest Nevraumont, a youth advocate for education through artificial intelligence.

‘I challenge keeping America’s next generation positioned to succeed and strongly succeed in the future,’ Trump said.

Trump also used guests like Enrique Márquez, a former political prisoner of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, to remind audiences of his international achievements under his second administration.

In early 2026, the U.S. stormed Venezuela’s capitol city and captured Maduro, giving Trump newfound leverage in negotiations over the country’s future.

‘We’re working closely with the new president of Venezuela to unleash extraordinary economic gains for both of our countries,’ Trump said.

The White House reunited Márquez with his family at the State of the Union. 

Trump also awarded the Purple Heart to Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe and deceased Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, two National Guard members who were critically injured and fatally shot by a gunman who ambushed them while on duty last year in Washington, D.C.

‘I’m going to ask a highly respected General James Seward to present Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe and the great family of Sarah Beckstrom, with the award created by our late, great president, George Washington himself,’ Trump, who invited her parents as his State of the Union guests, said. ‘It’s called the Purple Heart. We love you all.’

As Trump spoke, Major General James ‘Jim’ D. Seward, Adjutant General of the West Virginia National Guard, presented Specialist Beckstrom’s medal to her parents and pinned the Purple Heart on Staff Sergeant Wolfe in the viewing gallery above.

Guests like O’Leary and Ellison did not receive a shoutout from the president, but mingled with multiple lawmakers.

O’Leary, primarily known for his television presence on ABC’s Shark Tank, owns companies like O’Leary Ventures and O’Leary Fine Wines. 

In recent years, O’Leary has surfaced as a political commentator, giving his thoughts on the effectiveness of political party messaging, voter sentiments and more.

Ellison is the current chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance Corporation keeps a relatively low political profile but, in the past, has made several high-dollar donations to many Democratic candidates despite now calling himself a friend of President Trump.

Trump has boasted publicly about a personal relationship with Ellison.

Most recently, Ellison has made headlines for his attempt to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery — a move that would solidify Ellison and Paramount as titans in the media world.

He was seen walking into the House of Representatives on Tuesday alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who invited him.

‘Honored to have David Ellison as my guest to POTUS’ State of the Union address this evening,’ Graham said in a post to X.