Vance downplays withholding federal funds from Wisconsin in new initiative targeting fraud - WISN

Vance downplays withholding federal funds from Wisconsin in new initiative targeting fraud

Vice President JD Vance visited a machine shop in Central Wisconsin Thursday

Thank you all. Thank you. Please, please. It's so great to be back in Wisconsin. Am I saying it right? Wisconsin. All right. I got *** thumbs up from *** couple of these congressmen, so I must be doing OK. You know, I, I, I think Kelly Loeffler, *** small business administrator, is one of the unsung heroes of the Trump administration. She has single-handedly rooted out hundreds of billions of dollars hundreds of millions of dollars, I should say, and on the billions of dollars over the next couple of years of fraud against the American people. So we got to give it up for Kelly. She's doing *** great job for all of us, saving us some money. I will say I took special note of one thing that she said though. Kelly said that I'm the coolest vice president in American history, and I said, Kelly, that is *** low standard. That is *** very low bar, but I do think that I clear that bar, but I, I, I think that was *** that was *** low standard she set me to. But let me say *** few words of gratitude before we get started today because I'm so grateful to be back in this great state with all of its amazing people. You all know this, Wisconsin is *** state with *** proud tradition of building great American products with Wisconsin hands, and that's what we're here to celebrate today in this great facility. Now that would not be possible, of course, without the workers and the leadership of Point Precision, and I've been learning *** little bit about this facility just because I knew I was gonna come here today. 165 great Wisconsin employees making great American products at *** good wage. This is *** place that rewards dignified work and this is *** place that makes America and the whole community richer, so you guys should be proud of yourselves. I wanna thank. I wanna thank the family, Joe and Cindy, and their, and their beautiful kids and all, it looks like we got some grandkids here, Joe and Cindy. That's amazing. Life's greatest blessing, of course. So great to have you guys, great to see you guys. Wait, what is today? Thursday Are y'all, should you all meet in school right now? I caught you. I caught you, but this is *** good excuse, right? The vice president of the United States comes to town, so you get *** ought to get **, uh, get out of school for the day card, but I wanna thank ** couple of other people here because all the things I'm gonna talk about, all the things we've been doing in the Trump administration would have been impossible without *** couple of great congressional allies. And so in particular I wanna call out Representative Derek Van Orden, my dear friend Derek, it's hard to miss him. Thank you. I, I gotta tell you, sometimes in Washington, you get to Washington, there are people you can trust, there are people you can't trust. Derek is one of those guys you can trust to always fight for the people who are in this room. He knows exactly where he came from, *** proud veteran, and Derek was talking with me backstage. He's like, we gotta, we gotta do *** little video together just so we can get it out there for the congressional campaign. And I said, OK, absolutely. What do you need me to say? And he said, well, just say that, you know, we fought alongside each other in Vietnam. I said, Derek, If we were Democrats, we could get away with that, but I don't think that's gonna fly. We're Republicans. These, these media reporters are not gonna let us get away with that, but there are so many great things about Derek, but all of the, the, the amazing things, no taxes on tips that happened because of Derek. No taxes on overtime that happened because of Derek. No. Taxes on Social Security that happened because of Derek. So if you are *** citizen in this district and you see *** big tax refund check come next month or the month after that, whenever you file your taxes, remember it was Derek Van Orden who made it happen and it was congressional Democrats who tried to stop it. So we're gonna send Derek Van Orden back to Washington, yes. We've also got President Trump's endorsed candidate for governor of Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany. Tom, please stand up and we recognize another great guy. Another guy without whom we could not have accomplished all the great things that we did in Washington DC. Now he wants to come back home and serve as governor. Are we going to make Tom Tiffany the next governor of Wisconsin? There we go. And then finally, if I'd had *** few people stand up, I want to recognize Representative Grothman. Where's Representative Grothman? Thank you, sir. It's good to see you. Where's Representative Brian Stile? Brian? *** great guy. We're not, we're not in Bryan's district, but *** great guy. We've got Wisconsin GOP Chairman, Brian Schwimming. Shimming, where's Brian Schimming? Thank you. Strait Treasurer John Lieber, where's John Lieber? Thank you, man. Thank you for your service. And finally, State Senate President Patrick Tsin. Patrick, where are you? Thank you. Now here's what I want to talk about. I, I wanna talk about the stakes coming up in November because it feels like this election in November is very far away, but if anything, the State of the Union should have showed us that we cannot give power back to congressional Democrats. Now. I am fundamentally an optimist about this country. I believe most people, most human beings, most American citizens, whether they got *** D next to their name or an R. Next to the name or they have no political affiliation, they're good people they love our country. They want our country to thrive and prosper but I gotta tell you, after the State of the Union, I'm not so sure that is true of the congressional Democrats that we saw at the State of the Union addresses. The president of the United States said very well you watch their reaction to some of what he was saying and all I could think was these people are kind of crazy. These congressional Democrats, if, if you think about all of the things that they were doing, and I gotta tell you, of course I've got the best seat in the house in many ways, right? I'm sitting right next to the Speaker of the House. I'm sitting right behind the President of the United States, and I've got one internal monologue going on, one thought in my head the whole time, which is don't make *** stupid face for two hours, which is hard for me. When you're on TV for 2 hours and the Democrats are doing crazy things, so I'll, I'll give you *** little lay of the land. So to the left, my left is all of the Republicans, OK, because I'm sitting right behind the president and to my right is some Republicans, but mostly the Democrats and so I see the reaction of all the congressional Democrats and it's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. So you say like for example, you had this, this, this beautiful little girl had such *** sweet moment with her dad, you may have remembered, she was probably 6 years old. She had been assaulted by an illegal immigrant. She had had *** very bad I think medical prognosis, but it turned out that she was OK. The 6 year old girl, her. By *** human being who never should have been in this country in the first place, who was led into this country by Joe Biden and the Democrats, and she's hugging her dad and she's so excited and you can tell, and I think everybody's heart feels very, you know, you get that warm and fuzzy feeling and then I look over the congressional Democrats. And they're just scowling. They cannot clap their hands for *** six year old who survived an attack from an illegal alien. What is that? What kind of *** person can't stand up and cheer for an innocent young girl who's doing well, who's showing the entire country strength and resilience, and then the president said may had this line, I'm not gonna get it exactly right, but he said, if you believe, stand up and cheer if you believe that the American government's first priority should be to look after American citizens instead of illegal aliens, and all the Republicans, including Derek and everybody else, stands up and starts cheering. And then you look over the Democrats. Complete silence, no reaction at all. The one thing that got at least some of the Democrats to stand up and cheer was, was the Olympic hockey team, which we're of course very proud of, but you gotta ask yourself, ladies and gentlemen, what is it about *** political party that cannot stand up and cheer for *** six year old girl who survived an attack? What is it about *** political party that can't stand up and cheer for the fact that we have rising wages and low inflation for the first time in *** very long time in the United States of America? What is it about *** political movement that sees the mother of, of **, of ** woman who was murdered on *** bus because the president highlighted this, this, this woman. And you know, her, her 22-year-old daughter was riding on *** bus to work, was killed by *** violent criminal who was let out of jail 13 times by Democrat leadership, should have never been on our streets, and then murdered an innocent girl. We recognized her mother, her strength and her character and her grief, and I think we all kind of grieve with her *** little bit, and the Democrats cannot even stand up and cheer for that. And so the question of the next election is not do we want low taxes and of course we do it's not do we want *** secure border and of course we do it's *** more fundamental question than that do we want to give power back to the people. Who opened our border, who raised your taxes, who won't even cheer for *** six year old girl who was wounded because of their bad policies, and I think our answer to that is hell no. We want to give power back to the people like Derek Van Orden who fight for us. And here's the thing, we, you know, it's funny, I talked to the president multiple times *** day. It's kind of the job of vice president. You talk to the president *** lot and every single day the president will say to me, what have we done today? Gotta do more, gotta do more, gotta do more, OK? The president has such an intense work pace and I sometimes think, Mr. President, we gotta take stock of all the incredible things that we have accomplished over the last year. When Joe Biden and the Democrats left us, the government of this country, we had the highest inflation that we had ever had in 40 years. Thanks to Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, we now have inflation at 2.4%, the lowest in five years, and it's coming even lower, ladies and gentlemen. Under Joe Biden and the Democrats, the average American lost $3000 in take-home pay, and under Donald Trump and Republicans in just one year, the average American has seen $1700 increase in take-home pay. That is more money in your pocket, and that's what we're here to do is make you guys more prosperous. Under Joe Biden in the green new scam, we had the highest energy prices that we had had maybe in my entire lifetime. And then we had Republicans take over with *** simple principle which is drill, baby, drill, get the oil and the gas out of our territory. Use American workers to provide American companies the energy that they need, and now we've got gas prices lower, we've got electricity and utility bills lower, and we've got companies just like Point Precision. That can actually afford the cost of doing business which they couldn't do when Joe Biden was in charge. So it's funny to me when the Democrats talk about affordability, you heard the president talk about this in the State of the Union address hearing the Democrats talk about affordability is like hearing an arsonist complain about fire. It's your fault. You guys left us *** country with sky high inflation. You all left us *** country where we were going everywhere but America for energy. You left us *** United States of America where the average family was $3000 poor. So our attitude is, you know what, when you talk about affordability, you're exactly right. You caused an affordability problem, congressional Democrats, and we are here to fix it. Now I wanna say *** few more things and I'll take some uh some questions from from the reporters. So one of the things that I love about what the president has done is he is trying to cut out the fraud and corruption in the federal government. I gotta tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it is very, very rampant. We have way too many people who got way too comfortable getting rich off of your tax dollars instead of providing the services that they need or maybe giving you *** tax cut. We had fraudsters getting rich off of your generosity. I did *** little press conference yesterday with Doctor Oz who runs our, our Medicare and Medicaid services, and beforehand we were talking about some of the fraud that he had uncovered in just *** couple of months. Let me give you an example. In in next door Minnesota in Minneapolis, not *** very well governed state, you had *** situation where we, we have *** service that that the federal government provides. The states actually provide it and then they get reimbursement from the federal government and you know what they do? They help autistic kids with after school services because if you know anybody who, who, who. Has autism or is on the spectrum, sometimes you need *** little bit of extra help and so we've got *** program there to help those special needs kids to make it easier for their families. What was happening is that Somali fraudsters, many of whom were illegal immigrants, shouldn't have been in this country to begin with. You had Somali fraudsters who were saying that their kids were autistic even though they weren't. They were collecting *** fat check from all of you and they were getting rich from it. So what happens? You get poorer, your tax dollars go to Somali fraudsters, and worst of all, you've got special needs kids in American communities that we ought to be helping and instead of helping them, we're helping fraudsters who don't have the problem to begin with. That is *** scandal and it's something that Joe Biden and congressional Democrats promoted with their open border, encouraged it, and funded it. Now I'm here to tell you that the job of your government is not to open your borders and allow fraudsters to come in and take advantage of you. The job of your government is to shut the border and shut off the fraud, and that's exactly what we're doing in the Trump administration. But you know it's, it's actually not just the people on the ground who are committing some of this fraud. Some of the worst corruption is the corruption that you see in the federal government, and I know Derek and *** lot of these other guys were standing up cheering for this. Why don't we stop allowing congressmen and congresswomen to get rich off of insider trading? Is that common sense? So, so again, I've got *** seat unlike any other, and the president of the United States, first of all, the whole time the president's given *** speech, I was amazed at his self-control because I would not have had it if I was up there with the microphone because these two women, far left Democrats, Rashida Talai and Ilian Omar, they're sitting next to each other and they're talking loudly the entire time, OK. So there's *** point at which I almost look over at him and go like this, but see, this is the thing you can't do when you're sitting behind the president. I would've gotten in trouble for that. Even Derek wouldn't defended me if I did that, but it's just nails on the chalkboard. They're talking, they're interrupting. The president was completely unfazed by it, but again, you, you're sitting there and then the president gets to the point where he says, you know what, we're gonna stop. Congressmen and congresswoman from getting rich off of insider trading from violating the public trust that you have put in them and get rich off of insider trading of course *** lot of people stand up and cheer most of the Democrats don't you know who was not standing up and cheering? Nancy Pelosi. I have never seen *** person more angry in my life than Nancy Pelosi when the President of the United States is calling out insider trading. Ladies and gentlemen. My hope for all of you, of course, is that we can make you richer and more prosperous and safer in your communities, but my hope for all of you is that you find somebody who loves you as much as Nancy Pelosi loves insider trading because then you will have *** very good life indeed. But in all, all these things we just have to stop the fraud. The government exists to serve you. We want the government, of course, to to be smaller. We want it to have to be limited in its scope. We don't want it in your pocketbooks. We don't want it telling you what to do. But there are *** few things you need the federal government to do. You needed to provide for the common defense. We need *** good military, you know, we, we needed to ensure that people like special needs kids are able to get the essential services that they, they need and can't afford. I happen to believe I grew up in *** poor family. When we have people who are down on their luck, we don't want those people to starve or not be able to get medical care. We want to make sure that Americans are taking care of Americans, but that is not possible if we allow fraudsters to come into our country and get rich off of your generosity of spirit. And so I want you, when you go to the polls in November, I don't want you to just think about all the great things that we've accomplished, all the great things that we've talked about. I don't want you just to think about no taxes on tips and lower gas prices. I want you to think who is going to protect my money from fraudsters and the simple answer is it's Derek Van Orden and congressional Republicans. It is not the Democrats who created this problem to begin with. I got so many notes here I could sit here and go on for another 45 minutes. Housing prices are down. Apartment rents are down 4 months in *** row. We came in saying we wanted to make housing more affordable and we're, we're starting to make good progress on that. The annual cost of *** new mortgage in just *** year is down by 5. T1,000 dollars and my friends, if we could get Jerome Powell at the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates because the inflation is now low, then those mortgage costs would come down even further. I happen to believe and I know the President of the United States does that when young people look at their country, one of the best things that we can do for our young families is make it possible for them to afford *** home again and raise *** family in *** piece of land that they themselves own. I happen to believe that we do not want our young people to be permanent renters in the society that was built by their parents and grandparents. We are gonna fight for our young families to own *** home, and that's exactly what we've been doing for the past year. Let's keep on doing it. But let me just, let me just close with this one final thought and, uh, and then I'll take some questions from the media. There are *** lot of specific issues that matter. We could talk about all of them. We could talk about the fact that we've got *** closed border and they opened it. We could talk about the fact that we've got the lowest murder rates in the United States of America in 100 years, and you wonder how did that happen so quickly? Two reasons. Number one, we empowered our great law enforcement officers to do their job, and the last administration was holding back. And two, we got *** lot of violent criminals the hell out of this country and send them back to where they belong. That's how you get *** low murder rate. We got so many things we could brag on, so many things that we still got to do. We still got to work to make homeownership affordable for our young families, you know, you, you've probably seen the headlines about, you know, the stock market has been doing incredibly well because the economy's been doing incredibly well, but the president asked me probably 4 months ago, he said, what about the Americans who don't own stocks? And so he's created *** new program where we can allow the 35% of Americans that don't own stocks to open up the kind of accounts like *** 401k that some workers have access to, other workers don't. We're gonna allow every worker to open up that kind of account. So when the stock market goes up, it's good for every single American citizens, not just the 60, 65% of people who own stocks. We want to make it good for everybody. So there's still so much more that we can do, but the fundamental question I don't think is. This issue or that issue, the fundamental question is who fights for you? And what I saw at the State of the Union, when I saw all those Democrats sitting on their hands, even when we're celebrating, you know, little girls who survived *** terrible attack, it hit me that these Democrats, most of them, they don't serve you. Now ask yourself, why are they sitting on their hands? I, I, I would like to think I don't know him personally, maybe Derek would disagree with me, but I'm gonna be *** little charitable to those congressional Democrats, and I think when that little girl was stand up hugging and kissing her dad, that those, those Democrats, there was at least *** part of them, the human part and their soul that wanted to stand up and cheer for that little girl, and all of them sat on their hands, and you have to ask yourself why is that? And the answer is because they know they don't answer. To you, the answer to somebody else. They answer to people who have corrupted this country. They answer to people who opened the border. They answer to people who got rich off of illegal immigrant labor. We want you guys to get rich off of the labor of American citizens. We want American workers to get rich for working hard, not illegal aliens, and that to me is the fundamental difference between congressional leadership and congressional Democrats and the congressional Republicans under the leadership of this president. These guys, they don't serve you. Watch *** speech of any of the congressional Democrats. Go watch us if you can handle it. Maybe have *** few good Wisconsin beers beforehand and. Prepare yourself, but watch *** speech when these guys talk about illegal immigration and then watch *** speech when they talk about manufacturing jobs for American workers that doesn't give them passion that gives Donald Trump passion. That gives Derek Van Orden passion, the idea that every single one of you should have *** good job, *** good life if you work hard and play by the rules, the idea that our young families should be able to own *** stake in their country, that's what fires us up. That's what we're fighting for in government, but you watch these congressional Democrats, what really fires them up, they get really mad at the idea that we're deporting illegal immigrants. They talk about the dreams of illegal immigrants who have come into our country, but what about the dreams of you? And your children. Because that's who I'm fighting for. That's who Donald Trump is fighting for, and that's who Derek Van Orden is fighting for. I'm not gonna tell you, and I know there are *** lot of people are gonna watch clips of this or even watching it live right now. I'm not gonna tell you you're gonna agree with us, agree with me on every single issue, that'd be impossible, even in the Republican Congress, which is just, you know, 220 or so very good guys, you've got disagreements of opinion. You've got some people who say this thing about this issue and, and something else about another issue. Disagreement is fine. But I'm not asking you to agree with us on everything. I'm asking you to remember who serves you. And what I know about Donald Trump and the congressional Republicans is that we wake up every single day and we think about how do we fight for you. The question in November is, do we give power to the people who fight for corruption, who fight for fraud, who fight for illegal aliens, or do we give the government to the American citizens for whom it was designed and for whom it was created? I think I know the answer. Let's vote for our people. Let's vote for Derek Van Orden next November. Thank you all. Thank you guys.

Vance downplays withholding federal funds from Wisconsin in new initiative targeting fraud

Vice President JD Vance visited a machine shop in Central Wisconsin Thursday

Updated: 4:13 PM CST Feb 26, 2026

Editorial Standards ⓘ

Vice President JD Vance downplayed the potential of withholding federal funds from Wisconsin during a stop at a machine shop in Plover, just one day after the administration announced it would halt Medicaid payments to Minnesota. "Well, look, we're going to look at every option we have because we've got to stop this terrible fraud," Vance said. "But that is absurd. Ask yourself, why would the government of Wisconsin not want to help us kick fraud off the welfare rolls and the voter rolls? And the only answer I can possibly come up with is they want to cheat." The Trump administration has demanded the data of Wisconsin's SNAP recipients, known as FoodShare in the state, along with data from Wisconsin's voter rolls, both of which Gov. Tony Evers has vigorously rejected. "Sending that off to Washington, D.C., is going to put Donald Trump in charge of elections," Evers said in an interview last week. "And I'll tell you, whether you're Republican or Democrat, that's the last thing you want."During Tuesday's State of the Union address, President Donald Trump said Vance would lead a new initiative targeting fraud nationwide. On Wednesday, the administration announced it would halt $259 million in Medicaid payments to Minnesota. Vance visited Point Precision in Plover Thursday, looking to tout the administration's economic agenda and squarely looking ahead to the midterms. The event was held in the district of Rep. Derrick Van Orden, whom national Democrats are targeting as a key seat to flip. Vance touted not only Van Orden but also Rep. Tom Tiffany in the race for governor. Trump endorsed Tiffany earlier this year, leaving him the only major Republican candidate in the race after Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann ended his campaign. "The president, he's the president of our party, he's a Republican," Tiffany said. "So we're always going to be tied to him."

PLOVER, Wis. — Vice President JD Vance downplayed the potential of withholding federal funds from Wisconsin during a stop at a machine shop in Plover, just one day after the administration announced it would halt Medicaid payments to Minnesota.

"Well, look, we're going to look at every option we have because we've got to stop this terrible fraud," Vance said. "But that is absurd. Ask yourself, why would the government of Wisconsin not want to help us kick fraud off the welfare rolls and the voter rolls? And the only answer I can possibly come up with is they want to cheat."

The Trump administration has demanded the data of Wisconsin's SNAP recipients, known as FoodShare in the state, along with data from Wisconsin's voter rolls, both of which Gov. Tony Evers has vigorously rejected.

"Sending that off to Washington, D.C., is going to put Donald Trump in charge of elections," Evers said in an interview last week. "And I'll tell you, whether you're Republican or Democrat, that's the last thing you want."

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

During Tuesday's State of the Union address, President Donald Trump said Vance would lead a new initiative targeting fraud nationwide. On Wednesday, the administration announced it would halt $259 million in Medicaid payments to Minnesota.

Vance visited Point Precision in Plover Thursday, looking to tout the administration's economic agenda and squarely looking ahead to the midterms.

The event was held in the district of Rep. Derrick Van Orden, whom national Democrats are targeting as a key seat to flip.

Vance touted not only Van Orden but also Rep. Tom Tiffany in the race for governor. Trump endorsed Tiffany earlier this year, leaving him the only major Republican candidate in the race after Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann ended his campaign.

"The president, he's the president of our party, he's a Republican," Tiffany said. "So we're always going to be tied to him."

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.