Red States and Blue States (But Mostly Blue States) Are Not Safe From Trump’s Retribution, Says Vance

The Trump administration has been using amorphous and sprawling allegations of widespread fraud, and the feverish rumors spread by right-wing influencers online that animate these claims, as a pretext to target blue states and cities for months now.

In the wake of passionate opposition to the administration’s lethal immigration operation in Minnesota, the White House announced it would withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicaid funding from the state. It was an attempt to seize on legitimate investigations into social service fraud, ongoing for years in the state, and use them as a justification for the administration’s surge in immigration enforcement. When public opinion rejected federal agents’ aggressive and deadly tactics, the White House found another way to enact its retribution against the blue state.

In February, Vice President JD Vance — the fraud czar — announced the administration was withholding $259 million in Medicaid funds to Minnesota as a means to “turn the screws on them a little bit so they take this fraud seriously.”

While most of these actions have since been challenged in court, the Trump administration has used vague accusations of social services and Medicaid fraud as a guise for withholding and attempting to claw back federal funds from Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois and Colorado since early this year.

These funding freezes are part of Trump’s ongoing quest to find novel ways to punish blue state officials he deems political foes, and the residents of blue states/cities who oppose him. His immigration enforcement operations, the deployment of the National Guard to combat supposed crime and the withholding of funds over nebulous fraud claims have all served as a mechanism for his ideological and grievance-based retribution.

Now, Vance claims, red states are no longer safe in Trump’s pretextual war on fraud.

Vance’s comments about red states came as he announced Wednesday that the Trump administration is freezing $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to the state of California because it is, apparently, not taking its rampant fraud problem seriously (as was the case in Minnesota, there are some legitimate investigations into health care-related fraud allegations currently underway in the state).

“There are California taxpayers and American taxpayers who are being defrauded because California isn’t taking its program seriously, but also you have people who have been prescribed medications that they don’t even need,” Vance told reporters Wednesday. “They’ve had drugs put into their bodies that they don’t need because fraudsters have actually encouraged false prescriptions and false administration of medications.”

But he also used today’s announcement to send a warning to all 50 states that the White House may freeze funds for their Medicaid Fraud Control Units “if they do not aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud.” Ironically, these fraud control units prosecute instances of Medicaid provider fraud.

“And if we continue to find problems, we can turn off other resources within their state Medicaid programs as well,” he said. “Now, we have red states and blue states that go after fraud aggressively. But we also unfortunately have some states — mostly blue states, unfortunately — that do not take Medicaid fraud very seriously.”

Apparently, as Dr. Mehmet Oz explained later in the press breifing, part of the rationale for suspending the $1.3 billion in payments to California is rooted in the administration’s anti-immigrant hysteria. Per NBC News:

Addressing the deferral of reimbursements to California, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, said that the state’s Medicaid records “have generated “major red flags for us.” Oz said that the administration needs California to clarify $630 million in billing, $500 million in home health service and $200 million in “questionable expenditures” linked to coverage for undocumented immigrants, he claimed. They are not eligible for Medicaid, however.

“It’s the largest deferral we’ve ever made,” Oz said about the decision to suspend $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments. “We’re making it for a good reason. We’d like the state to at least come to the table and explain to us how these outlier payments have been generated.”

— Nicole LaFond

Republicans Are Having a Hard Time With the Ballroom Funding

Senate Republicans are reportedly struggling to get on board with the White House’s request for an additional $1 billion in funding for Secret Service to “harden” security at the White House, which includes funding for security in Trump’s new lavish East Wing ballroom, something he has tried to sell to the public as a project that will be funded by private donations. The White House wants Senate Republicans to stuff the expanded security funding into the $72 billion ICE and Border Patrol reconciliation package that Congress is currently working on.

The request is causing heartburn within the Republican conference, according to Politico:

“There are still a lot of questions,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said after the lunch, summing up the feelings of many of his GOP colleagues.

The document given to Senate Republicans and obtained by POLITICO specifies that $220 million of the funding would go toward the ballroom project. That money, according to the document, would be used for “investments in the above and below ground hardening requirements of the East Wing Modernization Project,” including bulletproof glass and other security upgrades.

“Importantly, as the legislative text makes explicit, none of these funds will be used to support non-security improvements at the White House,” the document adds.

— Nicole LaFond

Murkowski Joins Dems on Iran War

Senate Democrats once again forced an Iran war powers resolution vote on Thursday. Though the procedural vote failed 49-50, Democrats managed to pick up one more Republican vote.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) joined Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Rand Paul (R-KY) and all but one Democrat — Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) — to vote in favor of the war powers resolution.

“The president has declared that hostilities have ceased, and yet it certainly doesn’t appear that hostilities have ceased. Nor that anything has really changed much other than the words that are being used,” Murkowski said on her decision to change her stance on the issue.

“You just can’t say hostilities have ended because we hit 60 days and you let everything just continue as it were without any further reporting to Congress.”

— Emine Yücel

In Case You Missed It

NEW this afternoon from Layla A. Jones: Black People Worse Off in Trump’s Economy Than Every Other Group, Per the Fed

Catch up on Kate Riga and Khaya Himmelman’s live coverage of the race to obliterate Black electoral power in the South: A South Carolina Gerrymandered Map Might Be Back on the Table

Morning Memo: Abrego Garcia Judge Upbraids Trump DOJ

ICYMI this morning, from Farrell Brenner: The Cost of the GOP’s Medicaid Cuts: ER Bills for States and a Spiraling Oral Health Crisis

Yesterday’s Most Read Story

Supreme Court Unblocks Alabama’s Racially Discriminatory Map, Showing That Alito Was Lying

What We Are Reading

Rand Paul’s Son William Hurled Antisemitic Insults at Rep. Mike Lawler  

At Least We Know the Washington Post Isn’t Buying Views 

Transport Secretary Sean Duffy Took A Corporate-Sponsored Family Road Trip. Taxpayers Paid His Salary The Whole Way.