Vice President JD Vance questioned Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) on Wednesday for defending Minnesota’s record on fraud, suggesting Democrats are hiding data on corruption.
The vice president weighed in on a statement Craig made during a House hearing with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, in which the Minnesota lawmaker said the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program fraud rate is only 1.6%. Craig’s statement provoked swift backlash from Rollins, who said the federal government is relying on data touted by Minnesota officials because the state won’t share food stamp data with the USDA or allow it to scrutinize figures.
“If the fraud rate is really as low as Democrats claim, why are they fighting so hard to hide the data?” Vance defended Rollins in a post to X. “Why not just work with USDA to audit and validate where the money is going? Their resistance to us going after fraud is part of why these programs ballooned in the first place.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee also jumped on Craig, in light of an internal poll the GOP said her Senate campaign commissioned, which touched on fraud. Craig is challenging Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan for the Democratic nomination in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN).
“Fraud is the top concern among general election voters,” the poll reads. “A negative message linking Flanagan to fraud is incredibly damaging and moves the US Senate race into a toss-up. ”
NRSC Regional press secretary Nick Puglia responded: “We’re happy to see Angie Craig has come to the same conclusion we’ve known from the beginning: over $9 billion in fraud under failed Democrat leadership in Minnesota and Republican Michele Tafoya on the ticket puts this seat squarely in play.”
The development comes after the Trump administration and Republicans have long requested access to Minnesota’s SNAP verification and enrollment data to target fraud. Conservatives believe data sharing will promote transparency and program integrity, after reports that the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families, which oversees the state’s SNAP program, said it has not used a new state law that allows agencies to withhold payments to suspected fraudsters. There are also concerns from Washington’s federal watchdog that Minnesota’s SNAP system lacks modern measures designed to deter fraud, such as microchips.
“Reports have indicated that Minnesota SNAP outlays increased from nearly $725 million in 2020 to nearly $1.5 billion in 2023,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wrote in January. “What, if any, internal policies or procedures exist to alert oversight personnel for such dramatic increases?”
A group of House Republicans in April again pushed the state to cooperate with the government after USDA and other federal agents executed criminal search warrants at nearly two dozen suspected SNAP trafficking retail locations in the Twin Cities. Minnesota has pushed back on calls to cooperate with the Trump administration on fraud, instead bringing a lawsuit against the government, arguing that requests to recertify thousands of SNAP households through in-person interviews are unreasonable.
“It’s bad enough that the USDA has no lawful authority to impose these impossible demands on Minnesota,” Attorney General Ellison said. “But once again, the Trump Administration is threatening to let the needy go hungry. Donald Trump is doing whatever he can to keep vulnerable people hungry and scheming new ways to punish the states that want to keep them fed.”
The debacle comes as Minnesota has taken center stage in the Trump administration’s war on fraud, due to sweeping concerns about scammers compromising publicly funded welfare programs.
The $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, which scammed federal child nutrition programs funded by the USDA, triggered conservative uproar against Craig, as several people charged in the operation were from her district. Investigators have probed extensive suspected fraud in other publicly funded programs as well, with federal prosecutors saying that in Minnesota, Medicaid fraud alone likely costs taxpayers $9 billion.
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“While that fraud in and of itself was breathtaking, the truth is, Feeding Our Future is only a start, and we believe it’s only a small fraction of the fraud that is actually ongoing here in the state of Minnesota,” federal prosecutors said in May.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Craig campaign for comment.