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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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