Vance Seeks Fraud Fix & Tehran’s Deadline Extended | 3.27.26

0:00In 2024, a truck crashed into Canaw in Moresque, where I work. 146 of our dogs needed homes fast. We asked for help on Facebook. Our stories spread through WhatsApp messages and Instagram reposts. Immediately, people stepped up. And just six hours later, every dog was fostered. I'll never forget how our community showed up for us. Learn however, 3.5 billion people connect to what matters with meta at meta.com slash community. The president's anti-fraud task force hits the ground running, targeting massive programs like Medicare and unemployment insurance. This is a problem that is faster in this country for far too long, and far too few people have actually wanted to do anything about it. I'm daily wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, March 27th. This is Morning Wire.

1:01President Trump warns Iran that the window for diplomacy is narrowing, while negotiations appear to gain traction. They want to make a deal. The reason they want to make a deal is they have been just beat this ****. And new polling shakes Democrats in California's race for governor. Could the state's top two system actually knock them off the ticket? Everyone's on the same ballot, and then the top two finishes regardless of party go through to the general election. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. This episode is sponsored by Balance of Nature. Does anyone else feel like nutrition is getting way too complicated? We used to just eat food. Now you need a PhD to read the back of a cereal box. Here's the reality. We've all been told since we were kids to eat our fruits and vegetables. But nobody really explained that what you're actually after in those foods are the phytonutrients. Those natural compounds your body uses to adjust, repair, and respond every single day. The more we've tried to improve food in factories, the further we've gotten from what your body actually recognizes as food.

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3:05What is the administration proposing to do? Good morning. So yes, this memo we obtained sent by Vice President JD Vance, who's the head of this anti-fraud task force. It's sent to FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson and other members of the task force. And it lays out this four-part plan to tackle fraud. The primary objective is to stop fraud that's, quote, bleeding the federal government dry, robbing taxpayers and denying honest Americans the services which they have paid for. So the task force plans to prosecute those committing fraud and to recover as much fraudulently obtained money as they can. We're going to be focusing on high-spend low verification programs, which are the ones that are the most ripe for fraud and abuse. Now recovering money that's lost to fraud is really difficult. The federal government loses about $250 billion annually due to fraud, and it only recovers about $10 billion of that if that gives you a better idea of how much we're losing and how much we're getting back. That's so much lost and so little recouped, as you've said. So what are the immediate steps the task force plans to take here?

4:07Yes, so they have a bunch of steps that they're focused on right away. The first one is to kind of get a picture of all the agencies across the administration and what anti-fraud measures are currently in place. So that's step one, step two, and this is interesting. They want the task force to report back on whether the Biden administration failed to actually fight fraud at all, and when you know if they find evidence of that, they will be making a big deal out of it. But they're also planning to assess and implement existing data analysis tools and tech. They want to identify more tools that they can use to prevent fraud, create teams throughout all these government agencies that can combat fraud, and then propose new legislation and regulations to prevent fraud in the first place. All right, so lots on the docket for this task force. We've talked about the fraud uncovered by YouTuber Nick Shirley in Minnesota on this show, but is that what spurred this fraud task force to get to work in the first place? Yeah, it's definitely part of it. Nick's stories were not the first ones we've heard about the fraud that's going on throughout the United States.

5:08Obviously, there has been a lot of discussion of Tim Walsh in the fraud in Minnesota. And the vice president has been very vocal about wanting to target this and wanting to look into it more further. Now, obviously, there's been a lot of talk about the war going on in Iran and concerns that Americans have on the home front. This is an easy way for the administration to say, look, we're working on what's going on in the United States, too. The fraud is a huge problem and we're focusing on that as well. And they're determined to prosecute fraudsters for a number of reasons and they highlighted these in the memo. They talk about the American people's right to justice, how they deserve to have justice from this fraud, the need to establish deterrence against fraud and the need for accountability. And the memo says, and I'm quoting here, the widespread fraud has not been committed by isolated bad actors. Large and powerful networks have furthered this fraud. The American people have a right to know how the fraud problem has gotten so bad and prosecutions will shed light on how this happened. So like I said before, they're going to be focusing on these high spend low verification programs that I mentioned, such as Medicare and Medicaid, for example, has $2 trillion

6:12dollars a year of spending, while the Department of Labor's unemployment insurance program has 43.5 billion a year in spending. And they view these programs as ripe for fraud and abuse. And the last thing you guys is worth pointing out that Vice President Jody Vance, this is his project. Trump has joked in meetings in the Oval Office about how Kamala Harris's main project was borders are and how she really failed at that job and the whole country knows it. The president joked about how Jody Vance, this is his job and he better not fail at it. And nobody thinks that he will and the president has complete faith in Jody Vance, but at the same time, the eyes of the nation are on him to see how he handles this. Yeah, certainly an important issue for Americans across this country. So a big moment for him an opportunity, but like you said, got to follow through. Mary Margaret, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. I am very excited to tell you about our sponsor today, Quince. Quince is an online retailer that sells high quality, classic clothing and home items made of real materials like cotton, cashmere, silk, European linen, all for extremely affordable

7:15prices. And today I am wearing this linen shirt, which I actually have in several colors and I really like to wear it. It's like a layering piece during warmer weather, but they also have tons of other styles, dresses, shirts, pants, etc. made of the same European linen that has a really nice weight to it. So if you are like me and you have a taste for luxury, but you also enjoy a bargain, you must check out Quince. And please use our link, quince.com slash wire to support our show plus it will get you free shipping and 365 day returns. And by the way, that deal extends to Canadians as well. So go to QUIMCE.com slash wire for free shipping and a full year to decide about your items. That's quince.com slash wire. President Trump is giving Toronto a little more runway before carrying out his threat to strike Iran's power plants. Daily wire contributor Tim Pierce is here to talk about the state of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.

8:15So Tim, this has been a very chaotic negotiation process due largely to the fact that it's not totally clear who's in charge of Iran at the moment. But the administration did share some insights during the cabinet meeting on Thursday. What did we learn? Right. There's lots to parse on the reporting on this, but the president believes that they are in talks with the right people. He gave a few updates on the situation in that cabinet meeting and he revealed that whoever is in talks on the Iranian side proved that they are influential. That proof involved a president that the president touted earlier this week. They said to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there, we're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil, which was two days ago. And they'll sail up tomorrow. That was three days ago. I said, well, I guess we'll deal with the right people. About the Friday deadline to reopen the straight-of-war moves, the president said it's ultimately up to Tehran, whether or not a deal is struck. They are begging to make a deal, not me.

9:18They're begging to make a deal. And anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal. As it stands now, if Iran doesn't fully open the straight, Trump has ordered the military to strike critical energy infrastructure, which would have consequences not just for the regime, but would cut power for Iranian citizens as well. Though on Thursday, as John noted, the president did give the regime more time to open up the straight, and he set a new deadline for April 6th. The alternative is that Iran opens the straight, and related to that, Israel appears to have killed the official responsible for actually closing it. It said on Thursday that it took out the commander of Iran's navy, which U.S. strikes have essentially sunk already anyway. Now, President Trump has put a lot of pressure on U.S. allies to step up and assist in opening the straight. Last week, a few nations offered some varying degrees of support. Where do things stand now? Right. Trump is not impressed, and he's making that clear. We spend trillions of dollars protecting Europe, protecting the countries of NATO.

10:23They weren't there for us for small time. This is small time. You know what? Venezuela is a big deal, but it's not the big one. They weren't there. So what makes you think they'd be there if we needed them for something? Now maybe somewhat, ironically, for the Europeans, their main interest in the straight is energy prices, but some in the business community are more concerned about the impact on energy prices in the long term if the U.S. does not meet its goals in Iran and instead withdraws too early. Here's BlackRock CEO Larry Fink saying that the real risk to affordable energy is in Tehran. If there's a cessation of war and yet Iran remains a threat, a threat to trade, a threat to the rates of Harmuth, then I would argue that we could have years, years of, you know, above $100 closer to $150 oil. For his part, Trump said Thursday that taking over Iran's oil like the U.S. did in Venezuela is still an option. Are you guys even taking control of Iran's oil?

11:25It's an option. I mean, I wouldn't talk about it, but it's an option. So while the administration is signaling that the war is coming to an end soon, there are still a lot of ways left that this thing could go. Well, I think everyone is hoping we can stick to that four to six week timeline that we've been promised. Tim, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Are you stuck staring at your W2? Our tax refund worry is holding you back. You probably have Fomu, the fear of messing up. The fix? Using turbo tax on into a credit karma, they find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve or your money back. It's time to overcome your fear of messing up and get your taxes done right. Start filing today in the credit karma app. The California governor's race is heating up as the June primary raises big concerns among Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans say they've found shocking levels of fraud that should come back to

12:29bite their opponents. Something else to discuss is daily wire political reporter Cameron, R. Can, morning Cameron. So let's start with what's gotten the Democrats attention. They're very much alarmed about this. This new polling on the governor's race, what do we need to know there? So for context to the Democrats have a large pool of candidates in this top two primary that's going to be in June in this governor's race. Now the California Democratic Party chair has warned his own people that, hey, if not enough of you drop out, we could have a slim but real chance of a Republican lockout in June because of the jungle primary system. So then what he did is he went in commission to poll and it showed exactly what he was concerned about it had Republican Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco in those top two slots. And then you had three Democrats tied that was Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter and Tom Steyer tied at 10%. And then you had some stragglers, other Democrats in the race at 3% and lower. So a lot of concerns there on the Democratic side about this.

13:32And then you have some Republicans on the flip side of this worrying that Democrats will eventually consolidate. And when you have two major Republican candidates in the race, they're worried that it will then cause a Democrat lockout leaving Republicans out of this race. So a lot of concern here, but there's still a lot of time for this situation to develop that Democrats are feeling a little anxious right now about this. On the Republican side, we do know that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has been in the headlines he's battling with the state's Democrat AG over this recent seizure of ballots. That's turned a lot of heads. What's happening there? So Bianco, who is the Riverside County Sheriff, is at odds with Rob Bond to the state's attorney general over the seizure of 650,000 ballots related to the Prop 50 election this past November. That's that redistricting amendment that reshaped the state's congressional maps. Now here's what Bianco said about this the other day.

14:33For those not aware, we are conducting an investigation into an alleged and potential 45,000 extra votes counted than the number of ballots cast in the November 2025 special election. Santa's office is arguing that the sheriff's office does not have the authority to do this, but a California court ruled this week that this can move forward. Now the other major Republican candidate, Steve Hilton, is also making waves for some of his proposals, including his goal to crack down on fraud in the state of California. What has he said on that issue? So Steve Hilton has been making a big point about fraud, especially in the state government in California, particularly after we've seen some nationwide concerns like this, especially with Medicaid fraud and Minnesota. Now in regards to what we're seeing in California, Morning Wire spoke to Hilton about some of these details. Here's what he had to say. We found from the climate fund, they've got this thing called the greenhouse gas reduction

15:33fund, which is a stealth tax, a hidden tax on energy production and use one billion dollars with a B that was supposed to be spent on installing solar panels, on low income apartment buildings of that one billion dollars, only 72 million was actually spent on that, 928 million diverted into democrat political activism, including voter registration. They said that was our second fraud report. The first one was the cannabis tax, so when cannabis was legalized in California, a tax was put on it, supposedly to fund substance abuse prevention, $370 million there that we found. All of it, parceled out in tiny little grants to democrat activist groups to build the democrat political machine. These issues are certainly not unique to California as we've seen in other states. Now fraud has obviously become a hot topic in many other statewide races across the country,

16:34particularly in the Senate race in Minnesota, but as for California, we'll definitely continue to see this evolve. Republicans would certainly love to see California in play in this race for governor. We'll see if Democrats are able to unite behind one candidate or not. Cameron, thanks so much for reporting. Thank you. Another story we're tracking. As hours long lines continue to plague airports across the country, President Trump says he'll now sign an executive order to get TSA agents paid. The agency has been unfunded for over a month as Congress struggles to make a deal and end the DHS shutdown. The president blames Democrats for the standoff, calling it a national crisis, and announced Thursday that he's using his authority to get agents paid and keep travel moving. Details on how and when the order will be implemented have not yet been released. Thanks for waking up with us, and if you're listening to the show, now you can watch for free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know. But, Sam, snow, the track, places where excuses don't work, where capability is something

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