Vice President JD Vance fired back at Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Wednesday after Walz claimed credit for a series of raids on establishments reportedly used by the state’s Somalis to scam welfare benefits.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that multiple locations — including the “Quality Learing Center” that became iconic due to a Dec. 26 video posted by independent journalist Nick Shirley — were raided Tuesday as part of a federal investigation into fraud. Walz tried to take credit for the raids in a Tuesday post to X that was widely mocked on social media.
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“This is like the, the arsonist trying to claim credit for the work of the fire department because Tim Walz let this fraud happen under his watch, whether he was complicit in it directly himself or just turned a blind eye towards it, we really did not get much help at all from the governor’s office,” Vance told Fox News host Will Cain.
“Where we did actually get some help was from some state local law enforcement officers who we assigned to the federal task force because the state government wasn’t doing anything,” Vance continued. “So, all credit goes to people on the ground, the federal officers, the state officers who are working to uncover this fraud.”
“The Task Force has had unprecedented success in eliminating fraud across the United States,” a spokesperson for Vance told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The President’s War on Fraud is working, as the task force and the entire Trump Administration continue to work tirelessly to expose Fraudsters who have scammed the American people out of billions of dollars.”
Walz announced he would drop his bid for a third term in a Jan. 5 statement, less than two weeks after Shirley released the video probing Somali day care centers. Federal officials estimated in December that at least $9 billion had been stolen from various welfare programs, describing the situation as involving “industrial-scale” fraud, according to CBS News Minnesota.
Initial reports about welfare fraud in Minnesota by City Journal in November, which also alleged proceeds from various scams went to the Somalia-based radical Islamic terrorist group al-Shabaab, prompted President Donald Trump to declare an end to “Temporary Protected Status” for Somalis in the state on Nov. 22.
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