Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that the federal government will temporarily halt certain Medicaid payments to the state of Minnesota, citing what he described as verified fraud within a state-run program.
Vance said the move is aimed at ensuring Minnesotans are “good stewards of the American people’s tax money.”
'They’re going to fraudsters in Minneapolis. That is unacceptable.'
“We’re announcing today that 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 obligation seriously,” Vance said.
Vance clarified that providers on the ground in Minnesota have already been paid by the state. The federal government is pausing reimbursement payments to the state government, not direct payments to providers.
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Vance pointed to what he described as a confirmed case of fraud involving a program intended to provide after-school services to autistic children.
According to Vance, some individuals set up “sham businesses,” created fake clients, and even listed individuals “who are not even autistic” in order to collect Medicaid funds.
“A program that existed to ensure that autistic children had access to some after-school services has made a number of people rich,” Vance said, adding that the money “ought, by right, go to American citizens and to American families.”
He argued that the alleged fraud not only wastes taxpayer dollars but also diverts services away from children who genuinely need them.
“There are kids in Minnesota who deserve these services, who need these services, and they’re not going to those kids,” Vance said. “They’re going to fraudsters in Minneapolis. That is unacceptable.”
Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
“One of the things I love about our country is that we’re a generous country,” Vance said.
“We take care of our fellow citizens who can’t afford medical care because they’re down on their luck.”
He added that programs like Medicaid and food assistance exist to ensure families have access to “food, medical care, after-school services when their family needs them.”
However, Vance said that in Minnesota and other states, “the generosity and the good hearts of our fellow Americans are being taken advantage of.”
“This is disgraceful. It has happened for too long,” Vance said. “Far too many people have gotten rich by taking what is the best of the American spirit and getting rich off of it instead of providing services to kids who need it.”
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz's office and the Department of Human Services of Minnesota did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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Even after his theatrical State of the Union address, President Trump remains the only person who knows for certain whether the United States will strike Iran. That ambiguity does not signal confusion. It reflects a negotiator’s instinct: The threat of force often carries more value than force itself.
As a massive American armada gathers in the Persian Gulf — the region’s largest naval deployment since 2003, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford — the White House is also signaling that it still prefers a grand bargain to a regional war. For a president who has long said his legacy will rest on ending “endless wars” and who plainly covets a Nobel Peace Prize, a diplomatic breakthrough that dismantles Iran’s nuclear ambitions without a shot fired would be the ideal outcome.
The Geneva talks are more than another diplomatic set piece. They will test whether Trump’s 'art of the deal' can work against one of the most entrenched regimes in the Middle East.
The tension in Washington is palpable, and the president’s frustration is starting to show through his inner circle.
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, recently offered a revealing glimpse during a briefing on the Gulf buildup. Referring to the sweeping mobilization of ships, personnel, and equipment, Witkoff said Trump is "curious" that despite the gathering of this massive armada, Iran has not yet "capitulated.”
That remark gets to the heart of the standoff. The strategy is pure Trump: maximize leverage, restate the “zero enrichment” red line, and wait for the other side to conclude that its only path to survival runs through a signed deal. But the clerical regime in Tehran has proved more stubborn than even Trump appears to have expected.
As the third round of negotiations began in Geneva on Thursday, there were real reasons for cautious optimism, even as rumors of a “multi-stage interim deal” continued to circulate.
For all its revolutionary bluster and posturing over ballistic missiles, the Iranian regime is facing a deep internal crisis. The mass protests that erupted in late 2025 and continued into early this year — with a fresh wave of student-led strikes reported this week — have badly shaken the system. Even after a brutal crackdown and sweeping internet blackouts, the grievances have not disappeared. The economy is in ruins, the rial has hit record lows, and the public has no appetite for a full-scale war with a superpower.
Inside Tehran, the divisions are growing. Hard-liners within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps still posture about delivering a “regret-inducing” response to American pressure. More pragmatic figures, however — reportedly now led by veteran negotiator Ali Larijani — are speaking more openly. They understand that a war with the United States could mean the end of the Islamic Republic itself. Reports suggest that even figures close to the supreme leader are searching for an off-ramp that preserves the regime’s core interests while winning enough sanctions relief to calm a restive population.
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The regional picture also favors Washington. Across the Gulf, Arab capitals are watching with a mix of anxiety and quiet approval. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others do not want their cities caught in the blast radius of a regional war. But they are also weary of Iran’s regional meddling and nuclear progress. They want Tehran checked without turning the Gulf into a battlefield. That gives Trump useful diplomatic cover to keep the pressure campaign in place while leaving the Geneva door open.
The Geneva talks are more than another diplomatic set piece. They will test whether Trump’s “art of the deal” can work against one of the most entrenched regimes in the Middle East.
By combining military pressure, economic punishment, and the lure of a sweeping agreement, Trump has pushed Tehran into a corner. The regime is learning that this White House has little interest in the incremental half measures of the past. Washington wants a broader settlement — one that reaches beyond the nuclear file to the wider balance of power in the region.
If a deal comes this week, it will likely come because Tehran concludes that domestic collapse poses a greater danger than diplomatic humiliation. For Trump, that would amount to a crowning achievement: proof that his transactional style can deliver where decades of conventional diplomacy failed.
In the high-stakes contest between Washington and Tehran, the winner may not be the side with the biggest fleet. It may be the side that best understands the other’s breaking point.
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