LIVE: Trump, Vance make Oval Office announcement

very young guy. He got it very early, and it's too bad that you had to ruin your youth to find that such bad people exist. But welcome to the world. I also want to thank the head of the White House task force to eliminate fraud, Vice President JD Vance, who's been amazing. He's done a fantastic job. Along with FTC Chairman, task force vice chair Andrew Ferguson. Great job, Andrew. Proud of you. Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Thank you, Oz. And Homeland Security Advisor, Stephen Miller. Stephen,

As many of you know, Nick has been at the forefront of the battle to stop the horrible plague that's happened within our country. And there's never been anything like it, what's happened. And it's, look, it's been going on for a long time, but in the Biden administration it was sick. Nick used his popular YouTube channel to reveal that the Somali community, the lovely community from Somalia, a lovely country, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was stealing billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money through fraudulent child care centers and other scams, including the infamous Quality Learing Centers. The Learing, remember the Learing? They meant learning, but they weren't able to spell it right. They were teaching people, but they couldn't spell the name. The Learing Center. And did you notice that? I mean, did that get your attention when you saw Learing?

Yeah. I couldn't believe it when I saw it.

It was the beginning.

It was the beginning.

That was not a good... That was not good for them when they put that sign up.

Partially as a result of Nick's work since I took office, 115 Minnesota fraudsters have been arrested and charged. And by the way, the governor is 100% guilty. He's 100% guilty. He's a fraud. He's a thief. He's a crook. And he's getting away by just getting out of office. He's getting away. But maybe they have... He knew everything that was happening. The attorney general, that guy is a total thief.

And it's a shame that they can just go and retire because he knew what was happening. I'm sure he's very, very happy monetarily. But the governor, he's a crooked guy because nobody can be that lucky. I mean, when you look at all of that money and he knew nothing about it. All of the billions and billions of dollars that everybody was scamming, they all knew. That little congresswoman, lovely little woman she is, she knew. They all knew. They're all scammers and thieves and so bad for our country. But 75 have been convicted and over 2,700 subpoenas have been issued. And by the way, your lieutenant governor knew all about it. I saw her the other night. 'Oh, I didn't know.' The governor knew. She didn't know anything. She knew nothing. If she knew so little, she shouldn't be governor. They should elect a very talented Republican who happens to be running. But the lieutenant governor knew everything, and she's a liar.

Similar scams have been uncovered in Maine and California and many other mostly Democrat states, and it's in Republican areas too, but it seems to be tremendously less. But these, I mean, California is a disaster, Minnesota, Maine, it's hard to believe, so bad. It's like nobody can believe the level. It's sort of like JD said it to me, 'It's shooting fish in a barrel. There's so much. They had no idea.' And they had no idea it could be so thick. Nick's work to stop taxpayers from being ripped off is a direct threat to the radical left's effort to turn America into a third world country ruled by people who hate America. Now, it's a scam. It's a giant scam. That's why California recently passed the Stop Nick Shirley Act, an outrageous attempt to crush free speech and to stop the corruption from being exposed. So today, I'm thrilled to announce the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program. Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program.

And mark those words. Independent journalists and everybody, and all Americans will now be able to go to fraud.gov and report cases of corruption and theft of taxpayer dollars in their communities, all via a new website created by Joe Gebbia, who's fantastic, by the way, and the team at the National Design Studio. Everything Joe's done has been a big success for us. So, here's what we're going to be doing. Anybody that can prove that he turned somebody in — in other words, he or she, if you turn somebody in and you, let's say, report and you find a billion dollars, we are giving a commission to that person of 1%. It's a lot of money. And if it's 10 billion, 200 billion, 400 billion, we're giving a 1% commission to that person. You have to prove that you were the one and prove that it was you. And I don't know if you can do this, but subject to the laws of our nation, which I feel very strongly about, if a reporter turns somebody in, you have to get approval perhaps from your wonderful newspaper. But if you turn somebody in, you get a 1% commission. You may turn it down or you may say, 'I'm not going to be a reporter any longer. This is too easy.' So if a reporter turns somebody in, we're going to continue the same 1%. So if somebody turns somebody in for a million dollars — but a million dollars is very small potatoes — you get a 1% commission, subject to the rules of the nation, subject to all of the things. And we're going to let the reporters, for the first time in many cases in your lives. You've done a good job. Some are very professional journalists, but it's not a very profitable thing to do, but it's a very important thing to do. Very few things are more important than good journalism. But we're going to, if they're allowed to do it, if you can get approval from your media outlet, whoever that may be, we're going to let the reporters partake because, you know, a lot of things that are happening, maybe in many cases more than most others. So, I'm going to add into that group of people, reporters. So, if anybody turns anybody in — a billion dollars, $5 billion, a hundred billion — you get a 1% commission.

And I think that will be amazing because the kind of money that's been stolen is trillions from this country by crooked politicians that made things and set things up. Crooked attorney generals like we have in New York, like we have in Minnesota, like we have — I can name all of them. I can name all of them pretty much. This new incentive program will help expand the anti-fraud and corruption efforts of JD and his people. And they really are. They are amazing people. Smart. It's incredible. Without any incentive, the kind of money that they've already found — billions and billions of dollars — and saved American taxpayers. It'll save trillions. I believe trillions. So, since I came into office, we've already uncovered $260 billion of fraud. And that's peanuts compared to what the real number is. And when we talk about it, we're talking about Oz, we're talking about Medicare, Medicaid, all of the things that you've uncovered so far. And he's discovered billions, but that's a tiny fraction of what the real number is. And I think with this incentive, people are going to say, 'Wow, it's going to keep a lot of people honest.' I can tell you that. So, it's amazing.

We've removed the names of 60,000 dead people from the list of food stamp recipients. These are people that died. Some of them were quite old, actually. Well over a hundred. Many, many over a hundred. We kicked 275,000 illegal aliens off of Social Security. And Frank has been amazing in Social Security. JD, I think...

He's been fantastic, whatever he does, and eliminated $125 billion in Obamacare subsidies, which is a totally corrupt form of healthcare for foreign migrants. We uncovered 562,000 fraudulent small business loans. Think of it. Not $562,000 — 562,000 fraudulent loans. And we cut off funding to hundreds of fake hospice facilities that stole an estimated $1.4 billion. And that number, you can probably multiply it times a hundred. So now I'm going to ask JD to speak. JD Vance to speak. He's done a fantastic job as our vice president, and now he's really into this because he sees what — and you know, he sees what's happened, how sick it is. But the American public is not going to stand for it. So JD is going to be followed by Andrew Ferguson, Dr. Oz, and Nick Shirley. I just want to say that it's such an honor to do this, and all of those people that are willing to do the right thing and turn people in that they know where there's been something that happened that they know all about — they're going to become rich. When you get 1% of a billion dollars, 1% of a hundred billion dollars, it's going to be a tremendous amount of money. It's the largest commission ever paid, probably, for anything anywhere because the numbers you're talking about are in the trillions. So JD, I'd like you to start. And then the other group — I don't think I have to repeat the names. They're very well known, but they're going to go. And JD, we're very proud, very proud of the fact that they found a lot, but that's peanuts compared to what we're going to find with this incentive or commission. Thank you very much, JD. Go ahead.

Thank you very much, JD. And just before we go, I was just thinking — when you do these things, sometimes there's a dispute as to who turned them in and who didn't turn them in, and who's supposed to get what and when, and, you know, it was somebody else gave it. And so I am going to do something which I think people will like. I will be the arbitrator of all of these decisions. In other words, I'll determine whether or not the person is deserving, and I'll determine — and I will be very generous. Believe me, we're not looking to save on that. But you know, you could have disputes where you have three people come in and they say, 'I'm going to make it...' We're going to make it like a binding arbitration. I'll make the determination. I will be — I promise you I'll be fair, and I'm not doing it for any other reasons other than to expedite, because I think it's very important. But it'll be a binding arbitration. You'll get your money immediately, but I'll make the determination. So if two people are fighting over it, maybe they'll split it or maybe whatever, but I'll make that determination. It'll be done expeditiously and fairly, and we won't have long lines waiting or court cases or anything else. We'll have a binding arbitration. Does that sound good to you guys?

Yes, sir.

Does everybody trust me to do it? I promise. There's nothing in this for me. That's only — and I would like to have that handsome group of people come up here with us. Is that all right? All you guys, come on up here.

So great. Come on up here, fellas. Look at them. Young, handsome people. I've always hated young, handsome people. I've never liked them. Come on up. You got it. These people are outstanding. Please.

And by the way, congressional Democrats have fought that every step of the way, and congressional Republicans have supported it. So, remember that in a couple weeks.

Yes, sir. What's the fight? Oz, please go ahead.

Mr. President, Vice President, thanks to the anti-fraud task force, we've broken down all the silos, which has helped CMS, Medicare, Medicaid a lot, because oftentimes the ability to pursue cases depends on our ability to get DOJ involved, but also our ability to get Treasury involved to follow where the money is hiding. It's not just a criminal in front of you that Nick saw. It's also the people behind them who are making the big dollars. And what we have found is our biggest allies actually are people in those businesses who know that wrong is being done. They know where the red flags are. They can point them out to us, and that actually leads us directly on a trail to success with the many different fraudsters we've been able to take out. Now, the devastating blow to fraud that is being levered right now into even bigger actions is not done yet. We have at least two more years of hard work to do on this. But Nick, thanks to you and other citizen journalists, advocates, folks who are willing to step out and make some news happen that allows us to understand what people on the ground are saying, we're tipped off to big problems. Take Minnesota as an example. And I'll just pick one case because I think it's a good reflection of the real damage of fraud. Mr. President, fraud doesn't just steal our money. Fraud steals people's lives, and it also steals our trust as a nation. And that is devastating to any country. So when Nick showed us that, for example, autism services, which was supposed to be a billion dollars, had now gotten to be $400 billion. And the reason was that people were getting bribed, moms were getting bribed $1,500 a kid to lie that their child had autism. That has two problems. One, the kid now falsely has a diagnosis that's not right, which saddles them with an unfortunate future. And you also have moms who need the help for their kids who have autism to not be able to afford it. So, let's fast forward what this meant. We, after hearing Nick's work and pursuing it as well, starting the end of last year, we were able to identify that about a third of all the providers in the 14 high-risk areas in Minnesota were not validatable. They weren't legitimately able to produce the results that you would want to give to a patient. One in three should have been doing that job. We are now pursuing dozens of cases against those folks, including criminal investigations. We also deferred a half a billion dollars so far from Minnesota in those 14 categories because we don't think they can justify those expenses. And Mr. President, that teaches people that they actually have to send real bills and they can't make them up.

Now, fraud in Minnesota rhymes with fraud in California, where Nick went next. And in California, the new Stop Nick Shirley Act has been passed, but we think it's going to fail because I'll make this announcement today on behalf of Secretary Kennedy, Health and Human Services, that we are going to defer 1.2 billion more dollars from California today. They just got the note. And we're doing that because the growth of personal care services in California — just that one little area where you're paying someone to carry groceries upstairs for your mom, which many of you would carry groceries upstairs for your mom for free, I would think, but in California, they'll pay you a lot of money for it. And it's actually run by the counties, but California has been growing that program 24% in the last three years. That is twice the rate of every other state average in the country. Impossible for us to understand how that could be. So, we're taking major action in California again: $1.2 billion deferred in their Medicaid payments directed to personal care services. And Nick, you and I went to Queens, New York earlier this year. Nick has a unique ability, Mr. President, to walk into a room and ask piercing questions undaunted by people's inability to answer things like, 'Why are we paying you to play mahjong in a senior center? Isn't that something you again would do for free?' Where I was in New York this morning, same places that we went, it was the largest enforcement action of its kind. You'll hear much more about it later this week, but the task force is going on all cylinders. And I'll speak as representative of Secretary Kennedy and health: we can't do it without the task force. Mr. President, and JD, what you have been able to do and the rest of the team is unbelievable. It is remarkable when you get Andrew and Colin and others, Stephen, in the room and actually push for one single solution. All of a sudden, the usual walls between the solid institutions of government break down, and we make change happen. We just need a little more time, sir, to get it done.

Great. Great job. Thank you as always, Nick. Please.

Yeah. First off, it's such an honor to be here, and I want people to think about what is happening right now.

Very cool place.

Very cool place.

The Oval Office.

Me as a 24-year-old, I went out and exposed the fraud. I just was concerned about the well-being of our tax dollars. And right now I'm standing next to the president of the United States as now people who expose fraud. There's never been incentive for anyone to ever expose fraud. In fact, when I exposed fraud, instead of the mainstream media investigating the fraud, they investigated me. And people actually, in fact, wanted to kill me after I exposed the fraud. Because there's actually never...

Were you surprised by that, Nick?

I was very surprised.

They went after you instead of the fraud center.

They called the Learing Center. I'm not surprised. And asked the Learing Center if they were committing fraud. But that was the extent of their reporting. But now finally people have an incentive to actually go out and expose fraud, and when you expose fraud you help save America. People understand that these fraudsters take from the poor and needy who actually need the services that we all work hard to pay for, and they then buy Mercedes. They then send that money overseas. But now for the first time ever there will be an incentive for people to actually go out and make that change inside their own communities. So I hope by today millions of people are empowered inside of the United States to go out and actually make a change inside your own community, and you'll actually be rewarded for saving America money. When you save — when you expose fraud, you help save America.

Great. Proud of you.

Thank you.

Thank you. How about you two guys say something? Two stars. Two of our big stars.

Go ahead, Colin.

Well, Mr. President, there is upwards of $800 billion of taxpayer money that is stolen by fraudsters, many of whom are nameless fraudsters from even overseas locations who have targeted the American taxpayer benefit program as the softest target for fraud. This is a first-order crisis. That amount of money could pay the entire budget of the $110,000 DOJ workforce 13 times over. If fraud were its own department, it would be one of the most expensive departments in the entire federal government. This is something that we have to stop. And the team that you've assembled...

It could also balance the budget. These are the numbers — a little bit more than that. You balance the budget.

Correct, Mr. President. So the team that you have assembled is laser focused on saving the money of the American taxpayer, including using innovative tools like the one that you've announced today. And as Mr. Ferguson said today, we have filed a complaint in Minnesota seeking to seize half a block of property that was funded by fraud proceeds meant to serve our hungry children in Minnesota. It instead went to the fraudsters to buy property. We are on the ground in Minnesota. We have filed a civil forfeiture complaint to take back that property for the American people.

Thank you. Great job you're doing. Appreciate it. Really great. Steve,

Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you to the esteemed and distinguished members of the task force. Mainly, I just want to say thank you, Mr. President, because this only happens because of you. You're the only reason we're here today. You're the only reason that we've already recovered a quarter of a trillion dollars on our way to a trillion dollars. And who knows from a trillion where we get to, as the president says, it's enough to balance the budget. The main thing I want the American people to know is that if you're a middle-class taxpayer in this country, before President Trump came along, you spent half your working life paying for fraudsters and scammers, many of whom are refugees, illegal aliens, and foreigners who came to this country to loot and plunder us. So, think about that. Before President Trump came along, you went to work every day. You worked in an office or a construction site or as an electrician or as an accountant, whatever your career was. And you worked every single day to provide for yourself, your family, your loved ones, to send your tax dollars to the state of California, to the federal government, to do what? To pay for people that are robbing us blind, that are looting us, pillaging us, plundering us. People like Nick exposed. They came here from Somalia, been living here for a year or two. They say, 'I'm going to open up a fake daycare. I'll tell Keith Ellison. I'll tell Governor Walz, I'm taking care of 200 kids. Send me a check for $30 million.' What do they do? They buy Mercedes. They buy BMWs. They buy a mansion. They buy a nice house. All their kids fly first class all over the world. They are living the high life. Well, you, the American citizen who's worked your entire life and done it the right way, you paid every parking ticket you ever had, are funding that lifestyle. That's what the Democrat Party did to you. And their plan is they want to bring in another 10, 20, 30 million more people to loot you and rob you and take everything you have. President Trump is the one leader in American history who stood up and said, 'This isn't going to happen anymore. We're going to protect our taxpayers. We're going to protect our citizens. The looting will stop. The pillaging will stop. The robbing will stop.' And it's actually happening. And I, as a citizen, not just as a staffer, but as a citizen, am endlessly grateful to this president for having the courage to do what no American president has ever done before. Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much. Are you guys all set over here? Anybody want to say anything? Young, young, brilliant people. Anybody want to say anything? You don't have to. All right. I think you're doing the right thing. Your books will be very angry. All right. Any questions?

Yeah. On fraud, could the amount of fraud that you have saved or are saving the American people, as well as the government waste you're cutting, could that make a difference with the deficit next year?

Oh, absolutely. A big, tremendous difference. Yeah, we're looking at it very closely, the deficit. And you know, I'm cutting back the deficit with these countries where we do business, and we have deficits with almost everybody. Canada, $90 billion. Mexico, $175 billion. European Union, $225 billion. Well, we're cutting them way back to the old days. But you know what the old days were? How about like 30 years ago? Okay. A long time ago. No, we're getting back to basics. This country is doing so well now. It's amazing. But this is a big impact. And I think it's a big psychological — not only money, it's a big psychological. It's corrupt — many countries are corrupt. But this is just such a big part of the country is corrupt. We need borders. We need good elections. We need great journalists. And we have to stop the tremendous fraud that's been going. A lot of what we want to do, and JD is working on this with pretty much the group behind me and then some, we have Russ Vought. We're going to be very, very strong on the budget this year and what we're doing with respect to the budget. I think you're going to see some things that are going to be very impressive because we're taking in more money. The growth of the country is enormous, which other countries don't have. We have great growth because of the $2.2 trillion coming in. We have tremendous growth. We have factories and plants going up at a level that we've never seen before. But we're going to be doing some very good things.

France a little bit. With France, you've seen the economic conditions in France at the moment. You've seen what the picture is coming from France at the moment. How concerned are you that the socialist agenda will bring some of those same financial difficulties to the United States if it's...

Well, we've done a couple of things different. Number one, I mentioned the word growth. We have more growth. We will have at the end of this year, within the next little while, it's already happening very substantially. We have more growth than this country has ever had. And we have more growth than any country in the world is having right now. France has no growth. France is growing the other way. And that's because its social programs are brutal. And no matter what you do, I mean, it's not enough. But I still say, and I say it, and some people think it's a little controversial, I don't care, it's an immigration problem. We have people that poured into France, and they were also unchecked, unvetted, like with Biden what he was doing. We don't do that. We got many of them out, and we're getting many more out. We got the bad ones, the worst of the worst. We got, I would say, a large percentage of them out. We have some that we're hunting down, but we have tremendous growth and we have closed borders. So for 17 months, not one person has come into our country illegally. Think of that. Not one. And the people that do that list are, you know, they call them leaning left. You know what leaning left means? If they had somebody, they'd love to be able to say it. We haven't had one person in the last 17 months come into our country illegally. In the case of France and all of Europe, you saw what happened in Spain where they bumrushed Spain. They came in by the tens of thousands. All just poured right into Spain. And Spain's not doing anything about it. They just said they got in. They came from all parts of the world and from very, very troubled countries. Europe has to change its ways, as you know. When I go to North Carolina today, I'm going to be speaking about it. But Europe has to change its ways or you're not going to have Europe left. Yeah. Go.

Are you going to endorse — are you going to endorse — are you going to endorse French — are you going to endorse...

Can you be — hold it, please. You'll come. Just relax. All right. Go ahead, please.

Given the riots in France, are you planning to endorse Marine Le Pen for the presidential election next year?

Well, I don't know her. I haven't met her, but I thought she was badly treated. It would look like a weaponization to me when they did what they did. It would look to me like, you know, she was leading, but after this she's definitely, she's the conservative voice. I can tell you this: in South America it was all leaning big left. It's all right now. South America is becoming a whole different place and it's thriving. It's thriving, and as you know I endorsed many of those people. Every single one that I endorsed won, including the new president of Colombia, who's great. Elte, you know, they call him Elte for a reason, right? Because he's tough, he's a tough guy. But he was always big for Trump, and I didn't know him, but I liked him. When people like me, I like them, just typically, so that makes me different. But if you look at what's going on in South America, people wouldn't believe it. In a short period of time they are becoming extremely, extremely conservative in a very positive way in many ways. Yeah, please.

Mr. Trump, you said that the US could leave Europe if this type of violence continues. What would that look like?

Say it again.

You said the US could leave Europe if the violence were...

Leave it. Yeah, leave it. Well, I mean, Europe has to straighten out their act. So I called the various countries in Europe, and as you know, we're doing very well with Iran. We just have to make a final decision of which way do we want to win. We want to win the nice way or the not nice way. But we're doing very well. We don't need any help. But I was testing them. I just called individual presidents and prime ministers to ask would they like to help us, and they said no. I said, well, that's not nice. You know, we spend hundreds of billions a year on NATO. And they said no. But they were nice enough to give us Greenland despite all the bad talk. Oh, he's not going to get it. We got Greenland, and it's a great relationship we have with, frankly, Europe, but they have to straighten out their act. Otherwise, there won't be a Europe left. There'll be nothing to be friendly with.

If you look at what's going on in France, I've been doing this stuff for a long time, and I've been watching other countries for a long time. I have never seen anything like that. That wasn't a little bit of a riot. That wasn't a little bit of a protest. That was a full-on revolution, and it continues and it continues. So, you know, we want to be helpful. We want to be with them and all, but you're not going to have a Europe pretty soon if they keep going, and it's mostly immigration. There are other, you know, JD wrote a great post on it recently, but he would say the same thing. I would have said it whether I looked or not. I mean, it's very much of an immigration problem. You have people coming into countries that don't like the countries. Somebody said it very well. I said it very well. They don't like the buildings. They don't like the art. They don't like anything about the country. And they don't like the people. They have no reason not to do what they did in France. And I told President Macron, he's a friend of mine. I've known him right from the beginning. Right after I got elected the first time I got to meet him. I liked him. I still like him. But I said, 'If you don't stop the immigration problem, you're not going to have a country left.' And I said that to Germany and I said it to the UK.

I mean, you take a look at the UK, they have a mayor in London who was horrible. I mean, it's just absolutely horrible and so bad. What's happened to London, what's happened to Paris, if they don't stop it and remove people. I'm not just talking about stop. You got to remove people, get them the hell out. But they're not going to have a European Union. They're not going to have anything. And I like the people. They're friends of mine, I guess, indirectly and directly. That's where I came from, right? Some of us come from that part, that neck of the woods. But they better get moving because they don't have much time. When you look at France, and it happened in Italy too, smaller scale, but it's right there. It's simmering. If you don't get that out, and you're going to have to remove the people, you're going to have to remove those people that are insurrectionists. You're going to have to get them out of the country. You can't just say, 'Oh, we won't take anymore.' And they continue to take. I mean, again, take a look at Spain just a couple of weeks ago. And some odd thousand people, and in just a matter of minutes, rushed into the country. They don't do anything about it. I don't know where they're living. I don't know. It's a crazy situation going on.

So, we have now a border that's the strongest we've ever had by far. It's been that way since the very beginning of my second term or third term, depending on the way you want to define it. And I just don't want the results of this. I'd like the third term, but I don't want the results of the second term. But this has been an amazing thing that's happened to it. We have the strongest border we've ever had. We have the single greatest moment in the history of our country in terms of the economy, meaning the big economy, meaning the trillions and trillions of dollars that's building plants and factories all over our country. Toyota just announced they're coming in with a massive car plant. You know, we had a period of 49 years where we lost many car plants, but not one was built. And now we're building more car plants than we've ever built before. We're leading China in AI super intelligence. We're leading them. We're leading everybody. We're leading the world in just about everything. And, you know, I call it the golden age, the golden age of America. It's a pretty amazing time. Yeah.

President, you're offering 1% to whistleblowers for turning in what you're describing as fraud.

1%.

1%. Okay. That's actually worse. The False Claims Act, which has been on the books since 1863, whistleblowers can get between 10 and 25% of lawsuits. Why would someone who has evidence of genuine fraud go to...

Because it's a lot of money, and because when they did that, that's a certain type of crime. But nobody ever thought that you could have stolen $2 trillion dollars or whatever the ultimate number is going to be. And at 1%, people will make millions and millions of dollars for turning in what actually is a somewhat routine crime of, you know, of millions of millions. But we're talking about billions and actually probably trillions of dollars.

Who is the independent? Who the independent, sir? Mr. President, do you believe that process is back on track? Wait, do you believe... Wait, go ahead.

Yeah. Can I just ask you about Trump accounts? Could Trump accounts expand to adults? We've heard some...