Vice President JD Vance unveiled what could become the Trump administration’s midterm messaging on Thursday as he took shots at Maine Democrats and touted the wins of the White House Anti-Fraud Task Force.
Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd in Bangor, Maine, Vance accused Democrats of refusing to cooperate with efforts to crack down on abuse and corruption.
“What I find so preposterous about Maine—it’s not just that we’ve found tens of millions of dollars of fraud in a relatively small state, it’s that we’ve had no cooperation from the state government,” Vance said.
Vance specifically called out the state’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, saying her political career had been ruined by her eagerness to defend transgender ideology, and urging her to cooperate with the task force on targeting fraud before her tenure is up.
“I would love to work with the governor of Maine to stop the fraud that’s being perpetrated in this state,” Vance said. “This should not be a red or blue state issue. This isn’t Republican or Democrat. This is common sense. This is protecting every person in this room from being defrauded by their own government.”
It was the vice president’s first trip to tout his Anti-Fraud Task Force, and Vance leaned heavily into that fraud messaging.
“Because you all work hard, because you all pay your taxes, because you do things the right way, it is time to have leadership in Washington that treats you the right way and protects those hard-earned tax dollars,” the vice president said. “For the first time in a very long time, you’ve got an administration in Washington, DC that is fighting for you, fighting to protect your tax dollars, and fighting to put the fraudsters in prison.”
As an example of this fraud the administration has uncovered, Vance pointed to the case of 30-year-old Rakiya Mohamed, who pleaded guilty in early March to filing false tax returns for 2018 and 2019 and interfering with the administration of federal tax laws.
Mohamed owned a language interpretation business called Reliable Language Resources, but according to the vice president, she wasn’t doing any interpreting.
US Vice President JD Vance speaks about the Trump administration’s anti-fraud initiatives in Bangor, Maine, on May 14, 2026. (Photo by Tierney L CROSS / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
“This woman, her name was Rakiya Mohamed. It turns out that Rakiya Mohamed was not a particularly upstanding citizen,” said the vice president. “So while she said that she was providing interpretation services, do you know what she was actually doing? Providing zero services and collecting $15 million over a five-year period that was going directly into her pocket.”
“That happened pretty much during the entirety of the Biden administration and no one in the Biden administration thought to step in and stop this ridiculous fraud,” he added.
Vance went on to link the Trump administration’s anti-fraud message to its immigration agenda.
“Call me crazy, but I think that when we welcome new immigrants to the United States of America, they should be people who enrich our country and bring some good skills into the country, not a person who is gonna steal $15 million from the people in this room,” Vance said.
He also referenced reporting by The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak, who uncovered large-scale Medicaid fraud involving home health agencies and questionable reimbursements.
“Every single day I learn of something new,” Vance shared. “I learn about people who say that they’re claiming for hospice services, but in fact, they’re not providing any services and they’re making hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in the process.”
On Wednesday, Vance announced that the Trump administration would cut off certain federal anti-fraud funding to states that don’t aggressively investigate Medicaid abuse, escalating the White House’s anti-fraud measures.
“Vice President Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud continues to produce results for the American people,” a Vance spokesperson told The Daily Wire. “In just two months, the task force has exposed billions of dollars in fraud and worked with law enforcement agencies to ensure that fraudsters are brought to justice. The hunt for fraud will continue until every last person who takes advantage of Americans’ generosity is stopped.”