JD Vance’s claims about a ‘pro-fraud party’ suffer from two unavoidable flaws
With four months remaining before Election Day 2026, several prominent members of the Trump administration are focusing on fraud in social insurance programs, apparently convinced that Democrats are somehow vulnerable on the issue. JD Vance, who’s leading a White House task force on the issue, has been especially outspoken on this lately, peddling a variety of highly dubious claims.
To that end, the vice president this week took his message to Wisconsin, where he tried to make the case that previous generations of Americans “would not recognize” contemporary Democrats.
“They would not recognize a party that rewards the fraudsters rather than sending them to prison,” the Ohio Republican said. “So, I ask you a very simple question: When you come to vote in November, are you going to vote for the pro-fraud party?”
At this point, I could write a few paragraphs to remind readers that it was Trump who launched a fraudulent “university” that led him to pay a steep out-of-court settlement, who oversaw a fraudulent charitable foundation and had to pay $2 million in court-ordered damages, and who ran a family business that was found to have engaged in systemic fraud.
It’s also tempting to remind the vice president that just five days before he delivered a speech about “the pro-fraud party” and “a party that rewards the fraudsters rather than sending them to prison,” Trump pardoned a convicted fraudster — an act of clemency that is merely that latest in a series of presidential pardons for others who have been convicted of fraud — while his administration simultaneously has abandoned cases against those accused of fraud.
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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