Trump Says the War on Fraud Could Balance the Budget

Nick Shirley will be in the capital for The Strength of America: 250 Years of Freedom fundraiser dinner, where you can meet him in person, hear him speak, and spend the evening alongside UFC fighters and other notable guests. Quick! Purchase your ticket before they sell out, this is the last call.

Event Details

Nick will be speaking and hosting a meet-and-greet throughout the evening. Former UFC Interim Welterweight Champion Colby Covington and U.S. Pardon Attorney in the Trump Administration, Ed Martin will also be there, along with a lineup of special panelists.

This is an intimate, private dinner where you will actually get to sit down with the speakers and guests. If you are already heading to D.C. for UFC Freedom 250 at the White House, this is the way to kick off the weekend. If you are not, this event and the ability to meet Nick Shirley might be the reason to go.

Tickets are limited. Secure yours now before they’re gone and guarantee your spot at this unforgettable event.

On Wednesday, President Trump credited Vice President JD Vance on Truth Social for leading a nationwide crackdown on government fraud, suggesting the savings could help balance the federal budget. He praised Vance and Republicans for pursuing fraudsters, and accused Democrats of resisting investigations because they are “in on the act.”

To understand why the President’s claim matters, just look at the numbers. The federal government loses up to $521 billion to fraud each year, which is about 7 percent of all federal spending, according to the GAO. That amount is bigger than the yearly budget of almost every federal agency. Even getting back a small part of it would make a real difference for taxpayers. The fact that Washington has not made fraud recovery a main focus before is what makes these new efforts stand out.

That shift is evident under Vance’s leadership. The Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which he chairs, is now delivering results beyond press releases. An updated Full-Scale War on Fraud scoreboard from the White House underscores the effort: 447 hospices suspended in Los Angeles, $1.3 billion in California Medicaid reimbursements deferred, $260 million frozen in Minnesota, 8,000 active DOJ fraud cases, and a new National Fraud Enforcement Division that addressed more than $1 billion in its first two weeks. Colin McDonald, the first-ever Assistant Attorney General for fraud, has ended the practice of ignoring theft under $1.5 million.

Before the task force existed, Nick Shirley had already begun exposing fraud: knocking on the doors of empty daycare centers in Minnesota and inspecting California hospices that billed for nonexistent patients. Raids and indictments followed his reporting. The White House fact sheet does not credit any one person, but the timeline is hard to miss: five months ago, an independent journalist documented fraud that agencies had missed for years; today, the federal government is auditing it all.

The pushback tells you who is nervous. In California, Democrats just advanced the so-called ‘Stop Nick Shirley Act’ through the Assembly, a bill that would criminalize posting images of the very operators Nick has exposed, even as the same officials quietly take credit for dismantling the fraud rings his work helped surface. The President’s “in on the act” line is blunt, but it is not baseless. When your answer to a fraud investigation is to write a law against the investigator, you have already told everyone whose side you are on.

Will catching fraud alone balance the budget? That is unlikely, since recoveries take years and the money rarely comes back in full. But that was never the main point. What matters is that things have finally changed. For the first time, the federal government is focused on stopping those who steal from taxpayers, and every dollar recovered is a dollar that stays with the people it belongs to.

From the beginning, we have said this fight could be won. Now, the President of the United States is saying it too.

Let us know where you think Nick Shirley should investigate next, and what kinds of government fraud you believe should get more attention.

We couldn’t do this without your support. Investigations, travel, and our team on the ground all exist because of you. We don’t take that for granted.

If you want to support our work, shop the Anti Fraud Taxpayer Club collection (& more). Every purchase directly fuels Nick Shirley’s future investigations.

If you’d like to support our mission for exposing fraud across the country, consider becoming a Founding Member today!

As a Founding Member, you’ll receive the core Anti Fraud Club articles, along with these benefits:

We truly appreciate your support and commitment to our mission.

Thank you.

For the better part of a year, much of the political class treated rooting out government waste as a partisan obsession. Last week, the most prominent democratic socialist in America stood up and launched a commission to do exactly that.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani introduced COGE, the Commission on Government Efficiency, last Thursday. He says this panel will closely examine how City Hall operates and help it serve working people better and faster. The name is a clear nod to DOGE, the federal Department of Government Efficiency, which Mamdani and his supporters criticized over the past year as a tool for billionaires.

Mamdani says the similarity to DOGE stops with the name. When asked if he respected anything about Elon Musk’s project, he replied that he liked “just the name and what it [DOGE] should have been.” He says COGE will focus on improving services, not cutting them. There will be no mass layoffs or agency closures. The commission plans to hold about ten public hearings and will send proposed charter changes to voters in November. To create COGE, Mamdani dissolved a charter commission from the Adams administration, a decision his team admits could lead to a court battle.

Nick has said it plainly: government efficiency should be the most nonpartisan issue in America. When the mayor of the nation’s largest city, a self-described socialist, declares that New Yorkers deserve a government as careful with their money as they are, the argument is no longer about whether waste is worth chasing. It is only about who gets the credit for chasing it. Even Jeff Bezos applauded COGE and urged the city to hand the savings back to lower-income taxpayers.

So we’ll say what we always say to anyone who comes around to the right idea: welcome. But welcoming someone is not the same as trusting them. Mamdani is starting an efficiency commission while also proposing a $124.7 billion budget with higher taxes and more spending, including free buses, free childcare, and a large housing program. Critics point out that a commission that refuses to cut anything is more of a rebranding than a real audit. An efficiency effort that never says no to any program isn’t true efficiency. It’s just marketing.

We should judge COGE by the same standard we use for Washington. Will it actually find and address real waste, or will it just hold ten hearings and give voters a press release? There are plenty of places to investigate in New York, from the $368 million spent on a troubled homeless services system to the complicated procurement process that Mamdani once promised to fix.

Maybe the mayor really means it. If so, he should invite outside scrutiny of the same records his commission is reviewing. Nick has already brought his camera to Canal Street and the shelters. Now, with this new efficiency commission, he has even more to investigate.

Should Nick test COGE’s promises? Reply and let us know.