Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that uncovering waste and fraud inside the federal government is like “fishing in a barrel with dynamite,” adding that his Fraud Task Force uncovers jaw-dropping abuse every single week.
“Finding fraud in the federal government, it’s kind of like fishing in a barrel with dynamite. Every week, I get a report for the task force,” Vance said during an appearance in Iowa. “I am shocked every single day by the things that we find.”
“These shocking allegations, if true, show why the Fraud Task Force’s work is so important. I’m directing the task force to look into it and take immediate action to prosecute any fraudsters involved and stop all further payments as appropriate,” he wrote on X.
The vice president also described a pattern of brazen abuse stretching across multiple federal programs. He said Somali fraudsters in Minneapolis had exploited a program originally designed to help autistic children. Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins separately uncovered 355,000 individuals receiving double SNAP benefits, along with 186,000 deceased people still collecting food stamps.
“I actually think that we should take food stamps away from dead people,” Vance said. “I’m guilty of that. I think that’s a reasonable thing.”
Vance told the Iowa crowd that the fraud had been allowed to fester for years, enriching people who produced nothing of value.
“We had let fraud become so rampant in this country that people were able to get rich, not by creating something amazing, not by employing something, not by building something beautiful with their hands,” he said. “They were able to get rich by defrauding every single person in this room.”
The SNAP fight has now moved to state legislatures, where Republican lawmakers are pushing to close a loophole known as “broad-based categorical eligibility” that allows applicants to qualify for food stamps without undergoing an asset test. Critics say the loophole has allowed wealthy households to collect benefits intended for the truly poor.
The Trump administration has framed the crackdown on government fraud as a central mission of the second term, with Vance heading the task force charged with rooting out abuse across federal agencies.
