US president makes baseless claims about fraud in blue states and says JD Vance will lead clampdown as ‘fraud czar’

Donald Trump announced a fresh crackdown on “fraud” in Democratic states and tapped JD Vance to lead the charge. Officials swiftly announced a string of arrests in California.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, the US president announced that his vice-president was now “in charge of ‘fraud’ in the United States”, claiming the problem is “massive and pervasive” and that Vance’s new role as “fraud czar” will be “a major factor in how great the future of our country will be”.

Without citing evidence, Trump said that Vance would focus on “everywhere but primarily in those blue states where crooked Democrat politicians … have had a ‘free for all’ in the unprecedented theft of taxpayer money”.