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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
A line graph showed Republican voters were receptive as Trump spoke, while Democratic voters had a negative reaction and independents were neutral.<\/p>\n
‘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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.’<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Trump contended during his speech that California, Massachusetts, Maine and ‘many other states’ were ‘even worse’ than Minnesota.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
‘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.’<\/p>\n
Trump claimed that if the administration could find enough fraud, ‘we will actually have a balanced budget overnight.’<\/p>\n
‘It’ll go very quickly,’ Trump said. ‘That’s the kind of money you’re talking about. We’ll balance our budget.’<\/p>\n