Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration will review The Daily Wire’s reporting on alleged improper medical billing practices at Planned Parenthood after Daily Wire reporter Mary Margaret Olohan pressed him about the issue Tuesday.
“We reported this morning at Daily Wire that Planned Parenthood may be committing medical fraud by using improper billing codes when prescribing cross-sex hormones to gender confused young people,” Olohan told Vance during a press conference. “So, we&#8217;d love to know: is the fraud task force looking into Planned Parenthood on this front?”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://x.com/VP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@VP</a> Vance tells <a href="https://x.com/MaryMargOlohan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MaryMargOlohan</a> the fraud task force will look into <a href="https://x.com/MegEBrock?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MegEBrock</a>&#8216;s exclusive Daily Wire report outlining how Planned Parenthood may be committing fraud to hide transgender procedures:
&#8220;We&#8217;ll look into that reporting&#8230; To the Democrats who talk A LOT about… <a href="https://t.co/7hqpZFfj6a">pic.twitter.com/7hqpZFfj6a</a>
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://x.com/realDailyWire/status/2102441792805212570?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 22, 2026</a></blockquote>
Vance said he had not yet reviewed the report but indicated the administration was aware of the issue and would examine the allegations. 
“I haven&#8217;t seen the report that you&#8217;re referencing, Mary Margaret. I don&#8217;t know the answer to that question,” Vance said. “It sounds like we have some awareness that it&#8217;s going on, but we haven&#8217;t done the deep dive just yet.”
“So what we&#8217;ll do is we&#8217;ll look into that reporting,” Vance continued. 
The exchange came after Daily Wire investigative reporter <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/author/megan-brock">Megan Brock</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-planned-parenthood-may-be-committing-fraud-to-hide-transgender-procedures-watchdog-says?author=Megan+Brock&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=EXCLUSIVE%3A+Planned+Parenthood+May+Be+Committing+Fraud+To+Hide+Transgender+Procedures%2C+Watchdog+Says">reported</a> Tuesday that the medical watchdog group Do No Harm had asked the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate Planned Parenthood affiliates over potentially improper billing codes used in connection with cross-sex hormone prescriptions.
Do No Harm wrote that it had analyzed claims data from 2015 through 2025 and identified approximately 800 Planned Parenthood patients ages 22 and younger for whom affiliates allegedly wrote between 1,100 and 1,200 hormone prescriptions related to gender dysphoria while potentially failing to use appropriate diagnosis codes.
The organization acknowledged that its investigation has limitations and called for the federal government to conduct a further investigation.
The allegations come as the Justice Department continues a nationwide investigation into potential violations of federal law involving medical treatments for minors. DOJ has said that investigation includes potential fraudulent billing practices, including the use of false diagnosis codes to obtain payment from federal health care programs and private insurers.
The department <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/doj-secures-agreements-nyu-and-upmc-end-pediatric-gender-affirming-care">announced</a> last Friday that NYU Langone Hospitals and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center had agreed to resolutions over allegations involving pediatric gender-transition procedures. DOJ said the investigations into other providers remain ongoing. The department has emphasized that the claims resolved in those agreements were allegations and that there had been no determination of liability.
HHS separately released a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-trump-admin-opens-new-front-in-war-on-fraud-this-time-in-child-sex-changes">report in August</a> examining insurance coding practices involving sex-rejecting procedures on minors, including what the department described as fraudulent insurance coding.
Vance also pointed to the broader investigation during his exchange with Olohan. “We do know from other cases — not necessarily Planned Parenthood — but we know from other cases that there was the fraudulent provision of cross-sex hormones,” Vance said. “That people were using the wrong medical billing codes in order to give these therapies to children.”
He added that the administration would examine the Planned Parenthood allegations based on the evidence. “I always want to be driven in the fraud task force by what&#8217;s actually happening,” Vance said.

PAKISTAN-US-WAR-IRAN-ISRAEL

JD Vance Makes Promise To Daily Wire After Bombshell Reporting

department of justice

do no harm

jd vance

medical billing fraud

planned parenthood

politics

transgender medical procedures for minors

The anti-fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance took action on Tuesday to shut down hundreds of thousands of fraudulent Obamacare accounts costing taxpayers billions of dollars. 
The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud will eliminate about 750,000 Obamacare enrollments identified as fraudulent, Vance said Tuesday. The action will also include a crackdown on insurance brokers and agents suspected of abusing the program. 
“We&#8217;re actually making sure that people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them,” Vance said at a press conference announcing the action. “Amazingly, we weren&#8217;t doing that before.”
The Wall Street Journal, which first <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/vance-led-task-force-set-to-remove-760-000-allegedly-fraudulent-obamacare-enrollments-0fbb72d7?st=hAB9kk">reported</a> on the action, noted that the accounts being removed include individuals who were enrolled in the program without their knowledge, have healthcare coverage through their work, or exceed the income limits set to be eligible for enrollment in Obamacare. 
Vance noted that additional verification was being conducted on another 400,000 enrollments to ensure legal residency and income.
The action from the task force will also include the removal of hundreds of insurance brokers suspected of abusing the system to make money off fake enrollments. Vance said that one brokerage ring of 40 people fraudulently funneled around 50,000 people into Obamacare enrollment. 
“Most of those people were not eligible. Either they didn&#8217;t meet the citizenship or the income requirements. Many of those people, quite literally, didn&#8217;t even exist,” Vance said. “We had a system in this country that rewarded brokers, that made people rich, for enrolling fake people in programs that are meant to ensure that our fellow citizens have healthcare.”
The Journal reported that 66 insurance agents have been blocked from the program already and another 469 are expected to be added to the list. 
Enrollment in Obamacare doubled under former President Joe Biden, rising from about 10 million people to 24 million. That came as the federal government eased eligibility requirements to be involved in the program. With the spike in enrollment has come an increase in fraud and abuse, according to federal investigators. 
The anti-fraud task force has so far identified over $245 billion in suspected fraud and taken over two dozen documented actions to crack down on rampant fraud, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fraud/">according</a> to a White House website.

US-POLITICS-VANCE

White House Targets Obamacare Over Rampant Fraud

government fraud

health

health insurance

obamacare

white house

signal-2026-09-17-12-00-58-518_003

Usha Vance On Faith, Family, And Changing Diapers In The White House

2028 presidential election

abdul el-sayed

usha vance

vance family

Vice President JD Vance Visits Fort Campbell To Celebrate Thanksgiving With Troops

Usha Vance’s Summer Challenge Helped 30,000 Children Pick Up Real Books

lifestyle

literacy

summer reading challenge

The Justice Department charged a dozen foreign-born individuals with operating fake daycares in a scheme to steal more than $10 million from taxpayers, The Daily Wire has learned.
More than 250 law enforcement officers arrested the accused early Thursday morning and executed search warrants at their San Diego homes, which they claimed to be using as childcare centers, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. Eleven of those arrested are naturalized United States citizens, while one has a green card and a pending application for citizenship.
The fraudsters hail from Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan.
<div id="attachment_1178923" style="width: 921px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1178923" class="wp-image-1178923 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-15T104452.854-911x576.jpg" alt="" width="911" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-15T104452.854-911x576.jpg 911w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-15T104452.854-300x190.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-15T104452.854-768x486.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/Untitled-design-2026-09-15T104452.854.jpg 1230w" sizes=" (max-width: 911px) 100vw, 911px" />Credit: DOJ</div>
The 12 individuals obtained California licenses to open home childcare centers. They then registered with Child Development Associates (CDA) and the YMCA to receive subsidies to help low-income families pay for childcare.
California receives funding for the aid program from the Department of Health and Human Services.
To receive the funds, the defendants had to submit monthly attendance records showing the exact dates and times they cared for each child. The accused allegedly falsified attendance records to claim they cared for the children when they actually did not.
The individuals received the payments based on the fraudulent records, according to the Justice Department.
&#8220;Today is a bad day for home daycare fraud,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement on Tuesday. &#8220;These are the first charges alleging this type of fraud since the formation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division.&#8221;
&#8220;These fraudsters may have criminally gamed the system before. But today, the game is over,&#8221; he said.
Abdulrahman Ayman Alawad, a 25-year-old who was born in Syria, claimed his daycare looked after 23 children in March 2026 and 25 children in April 2026, the Justice Department said.
Surveillance recordings taken during 57 days of those two months showed just one day of children coming and going from the facility, according to federal authorities. It happened to be the same day a state inspector showed up for an unannounced visit.
Abdulrahman and the children showed up only after the inspector arrived, the Justice Department said. Border crossing records also showed that Abdulrahman and several other defendants were not present in the United States when they submitted attendance records purporting to care for children at their California centers.
One of the individuals, Turkiya Mamdouh Alawad, also of Syria, departed the United States on or about January 1, 2024, before returning to the country around January 30, 2024, the Justice Department said. While she was out of the country, the 63-year-old submitted attendance records to CDA and the YMCA for January 2024 and received eight direct deposits from the organizations totaling $14,970 in February 2024.
Several of the accused received more than $1 million in payments while running their schemes.
All 12 of the accused are charged with wire fraud, which carries a maximum punishment of 20 years behind bars and a fine of $500,000. Some of the alleged fraudsters have also been hit with money laundering charges, which carry the same punishment.
IRS Criminal Investigation Chief Jarod Koopman said the &#8220;takedown exposes a sprawling&#8221; and lucrative &#8220;fraud scheme.&#8221;
&#8220;By following the money, IRS Criminal Investigation uncovered patterns of deceit that revealed twelve ghost daycare operations billing for children who were never present,&#8221; Koopman said.
&#8220;This was not a victimless crime,&#8221; Koopman added. &#8220;It deprived working parents of critical support and eroded trust in programs meant to protect the most vulnerable in our communities. We remain steadfast in our commitment to safeguarding federal funds and ensuring that those who exploit public programs for personal gain are held fully accountable.&#8221;
The latest charges are part of efforts by the White House Fraud Task Force, led by Vice President JD Vance, to investigate and root out fraud throughout the United States. In May, Vance announced that the White House was suspending enrollment of home health companies in Ohio’s Medicaid program for six months following a Daily Wire investigative series into home healthcare waste, fraud, and abuse. In that series, The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak exposed widespread alleged Medicaid fraud across the state in Ohio’s home health sector.
On Monday, the Justice Department and Small Business Administration announced that their summer crackdown on COVID-era fraud resulted in DOJ enforcement against 160 defendants who were tied to about $245 million in intended losses.
During a Kansas City press conference on Monday afternoon, Vance told The Daily Wire that officials in former President Joe Biden’s administration were aware of the fraud, calling the matter an “open secret.”
“Everybody knew people were skimming off the top,” he shared. “Absolutely, we need to be looking into the officials who are turning a blind eye to this stuff.”
As of August 2026, the Task Force says it has uncovered almost $230 billion in fraud, stopped $56 billion in fraudulent payments, and enforced more than $55 billion in indictments, civil penalties, and settlements.

Empty preschool classroom with colorful children’s toys and furniture

EXCLUSIVE: Fraudsters From Terror-Plagued Countries Made Millions Off Fake U.S. Daycares

daycare fraud

san diego

white house fraud task force

Vice President JD Vance is campaigning in Kansas — a state where Republicans have won every U.S. Senate election since 1932 — as Democrats clamor to turn one of the country’s most reliably Republican states into an unexpected battleground.
Vance traveled to the Kansas City area Monday to campaign alongside Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, who is seeking a second term against Democratic nominee Adam Hamilton, the liberal pastor who built the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection into one of the largest churches in the country.
At a manufacturing facility in Olathe, Kansas, Vance praised Marshall as a Christian and accused Hamilton of using Christianity to advance leftist politics. “Democrats thought it would be enough to nominate a pastor,” Vance said, arguing that Hamilton’s church and sermons promote positions out of step with Kansas voters.
He also criticized Hamilton’s church for sponsoring a local LGBT Pride festival and pointed to Hamilton’s preaching about racism and reducing meat consumption as part of an effort to address climate change. “That is not Christianity. That is Left-wing radicalism dressed in the skinsuit of our religion,” Vance said. “Let’s send it packing in November.”
Marshall also sought to portray Hamilton as out of step with Kansas, accusing him of being “too woke and too weak to stand up to China.”
Vance&#8217;s appearance underscores the unusual competitiveness of a race that, under ordinary circumstances, would barely register on the national campaign map. Kansas voters broke for President Donald Trump by 16 points in 2024, and no Democrat has won a Senate race in the state in nearly a century. Yet recent polling has shown Hamilton within striking distance of Marshall. 
A September co/efficient <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/kansas-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html">survey</a> found Marshall leading Hamilton 49% to 44%, with 5% undecided and 2% backing Libertarian candidate David Graham. An August Global Strategy Group poll had Hamilton ahead 44% to 43%, while other recent surveys have shown the race within several points. That has prompted Democrats to devote attention to a state that has traditionally been considered safe Republican territory.
<a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/08/23/senate-ohio-alaska-iowa-texas-kansas-mississippi-nebraska">Axios</a> reported last month that Kansas was among several normally Republican states — alongside Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Mississippi, and Nebraska — becoming more competitive heading into the midterms. The publication specifically pointed to Hamilton’s candidacy as making Marshall’s re-election less certain.
Hamilton presents an unusual challenge for Republicans because of his background. He is not a conventional Democratic Senate candidate. Hamilton, 62, spent decades building Church of the Resurrection, which now has roughly 25,000 members across nine locations in the Kansas City area. His campaign emphasizes unity and affordability, while he describes himself as a centrist.
That background has also given him a potential opening with religious and moderate voters who might not ordinarily consider a Democratic Senate candidate.
Republicans, however, have argued that Hamilton&#8217;s sermons and positions on issues including abortion, LGBTQ issues, race, and environmental policy place him well outside the political mainstream of Kansas. Vance made that case forcefully on Monday.
The race has also exposed a divide within Kansas’s Republican electorate over Marshall and Trump. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/09/15/republicans-are-concerned-about-kansas-ahead-november-elections/">Washington Post</a> reported that some Republican voters in the Kansas City suburbs are considering Hamilton or identifying as independents after becoming disillusioned with Trump. One Republican voter interviewed by the Post said Marshall had become too closely associated with the president and criticized him for what she viewed as an insufficient presence in Kansas.
Former Kansas Governor Bill Graves, a Republican who served from 1995 to 2003, has also <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/article317167583.html">endorsed</a> Hamilton, criticizing Marshall. Still, the Republican advantage in Kansas remains substantial. The state has elected Republican senators continuously since 1932, and Trump carried it by 16 points in 2024. Kansas has, however, demonstrated that Democrats can win statewide. Democratic Governor Laura Kelly won re-election in 2022, showing that the state’s electorate is not uniformly Republican in every statewide contest.
For Democrats, Kansas remains a steep climb. For Republicans, however, the fact that the vice president spent a September afternoon campaigning for a senator in a state that has not elected a Democratic senator in 94 years illustrates why the race is receiving national attention.

Vice President Vance Discusses Administration’s Fight Against Fraud In Milwaukee

JD Vance Makes Campaign Stop In Deep-Red State Democrats Desperately Want

2026 midterm election

adam hamilton

kansas

roger marshall

Former trillionaire Elon Musk joined some of his biggest artificial intelligence rivals in calling for a slowdown of the technology’s development.
Musk&#8217;s comment on the issue came in response to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei declaring over the weekend that it was time to “pace the frontier.”
“Dario is right,” Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2098789109980332057">said</a>, sharing Amodei’s article with his 241 million followers on X.
Amodei claimed that advanced AI could lead to &#8220;losing control of AI systems,&#8221; cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and “serious economic disruption.” The Anthropic CEO went on to say that regulation is the most effective method to pace the technology “as that covers even those who are unwilling to cooperate voluntarily.” 
Vice President JD Vance voiced skepticism Monday about AI companies asking Washington to rein them in. 
“I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.” 
Musk has called for AI regulation for years. In April 2023, he praised Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for laying the groundwork for Congress to regulate AI. 
“AI regulation will be far more important than it may seem today,” Musk said at the time. 
In Amodei&#8217;s article, the CEO introduced the idea of “embedded evaluators” in AI companies, people with “employee-like access” who would be tasked with “verifying formal commitments and informing the public,” in addition to providing “a second opinion free of commercial incentives.” The reviewers would have access to Anthropic&#8217;s offices and company laptops, according to Amodei. 
“This is an unusual step for a company, but we think it is important to prove out the concept of embedded external reviewers. Once again, we urge other frontier companies to follow suit,&#8221; he said.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, agreed with Musk and Amodei, saying, “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.” 
The debate created a rare moment of agreement among Musk, Altman, and Amodei, who lead competing AI companies. Palantir’s Alex Karp argued it would be a mistake to pause AI development since other countries are continuing to develop the powerful technology. 
&#8220;If we didn&#8217;t have adversaries, I would be very in favor of pausing this technology completely, but we do,” Karp <a href="https://x.com/guilleflorvs/status/2099150503338820082">told</a> CNBC. “You can’t pause it because it&#8217;s a structural advantage.” 
President Donald Trump <a href="https://apnews.com/article/b85df16775ff7e9611a456b061a0e4b9">sided with Karp</a>, rejecting calls for additional guardrails and arguing that slowing American development would hand China an advantage. 
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades,” Trump said on Monday. “The Trump administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a &#8216;perfect little angel&#8217; — and we will continue to do so.” 
“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and data centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” he added. “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”

Elon Musk

Elon Musk Finds Common Ground With Rivals On AI Controversy

ai regulation

dario amodei

elon musk

sam altman

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Justice Department and Small Business Administration (SBA) announced Monday that a summer crackdown on COVID-era loan fraud produced enforcement actions against more than 160 defendants tied to approximately $245 million in intended losses to taxpayers.
Ahead of the presser, Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler, and Colin McDonald of the Fraud Task Force held a roundtable with their partners at an FBI facility in Kansas City.
During the post-roundtable press conference Daily Wire White House Correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan asked Vice President JD Vance whether the administration had reason to believe officials in the Biden administration knew about widespread Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) fraud — and whether the federal fraud task force would investigate them.
“That&#8217;s a great question, and certainly the fraud task force is looking into that,” Vance responded. He then said officials during the Biden administration were aware of the fraud. “This stuff was going on. Of course, they did. It was an open secret,” Vance said, pointing to conversations he said he had with state officials during 2022 and 2023.
Vance specifically recalled speaking with then-Ohio Lieutenant Governor John Husted, now a U.S. senator, whom he said was “exasperated” that the federal government was not taking the fraud more seriously.
“Everybody knew people were skimming off the top,” Vance said. “Absolutely, we need to be looking into the officials who are turning a blind eye to this stuff,” Vance concluded.
He framed the investigation as part of a broader effort to restore public confidence in government spending. “If you&#8217;re a taxpayer and you write a check to the government and you have no confidence that the federal government is going to protect your money, why do you pay taxes at all?” Vance said.
The announcement, dubbed “Operation No Doze,” represents the Justice Department’s latest effort to pursue fraud stemming from the massive emergency loan programs created during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the roundtable, the Trump administration officials impressed upon their counterparts that they are deadly serious about stopping fraud around the United States, and they shared their excitement at achieving such startling results.
“The cavalry is here,” McDonald told the room.
Between June 12 and September 1, federal prosecutors and investigators obtained felony charges against nearly 80 defendants accused of causing approximately $100 million in intended losses. Another roughly 43 defendants pleaded guilty in COVID-related SBA fraud cases involving approximately $44 million in intended losses, while approximately 40 defendants were sentenced in cases involving nearly $100 million in intended losses.
Altogether, the summer enforcement surge involved more than 160 criminal defendants and approximately $245 million in intended losses, according to the Justice Department. But the administration announced another number Monday that dwarfs the criminal cases: roughly 870,000 borrowers are being suspended from future access to SBA loans over suspected 
fraudulent activity.
Vance appeared alongside the roundtable members for the press conference in which he announced the government would no longer allow people suspected of defrauding federal programs to continue receiving government-backed loans.
“If you screwed the American taxpayer, the federal government is now going to say you&#8217;re cut off, no more,” Vance said. Vance added that the PPP was created during the first Trump administration to keep small businesses operating and workers employed during the pandemic, but argued that people subsequently exploited the program.
“If you were caught stealing from the American taxpayer, you shouldn&#8217;t be able to benefit from these loans anymore,” Vance said.
The SBA said the 870,000 suspended borrowers are tied to approximately $39 billion in suspected fraudulent PPP and COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan activity. SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the agency is also sending demand letters to suspected fraudsters and referring debts to the Treasury Department for collection.
The Justice Department’s announcement came with several examples of the alleged schemes investigators uncovered. In one case, prosecutors in the Western District of Missouri charged Jamie Gray with allegedly attempting to obtain more than $55 million through hundreds of fraudulent loan applications. Prosecutors say Gray claimed to own dozens of businesses that existed before the pandemic, even though nearly all of them allegedly did not exist.
One purported business, called Fur Lives Matter, did exist, prosecutors said. But people who actually worked there allegedly told investigators they had never heard of Gray. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the cases announced Monday represent only part of the federal government’s broader effort. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), who was among the elected officials leading the round table, emphasized the taxpayer cost of fraud.
“Fraud is not a victimless bookkeeping problem — it is organized theft on a national scale, and hardworking Americans continue to pay the price,” Schmitt said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “Every dollar stolen from the government came from an American taxpayer.”
The State Financial Officers Foundation, which represents state treasurers, auditors and comptrollers, was among the groups participating in the effort. SFOF CEO O.J. Oleka said the Kansas City gathering demonstrated the importance of cooperation between state and federal officials in pursuing taxpayer fraud. “State financial officers, the most trusted elected officials in 
our country, are proud to be fighting on the frontlines each day to expose waste, fraud, and abuse against taxpayers,” Oleka said in a statement obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire.
The administration’s announcement comes more than five years after the federal government launched the emergency pandemic loan programs. The Paycheck Protection Program ultimately provided hundreds of billions of dollars to businesses during the pandemic, while the COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan program provided additional assistance to businesses affected by the economic disruption.
The scale of the programs also created an enormous target for fraudsters. The Government Accountability Office has previously found substantial problems with pandemic-relief fraud referrals, including incomplete, incorrect and duplicate information that complicated efforts to investigate suspected fraud.

US-POLITICS-JD VANCE-TASK FORCE

Daily Wire Asks Vance About Biden’s COVID Fraud ‘Open Secret’

covid relief fraud

kash patel

paycheck protection program

A woman who lost her husband in the 9/11 terrorist attacks delivered a blistering criticism of recent presidential administrations and their perceived failure to hold Saudi Arabia responsible for its alleged role in the attacks on American soil.
At the 9/11 remembrance ceremony at Ground Zero Friday morning, Terry Strada, who went up to the podium to read her husband&#8217;s name, spent nearly two minutes in front of the crowd, ripping American leaders, whom she accused of protecting &#8220;the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families.&#8221;
Fifteen of the 19 radical Islamic terrorists who hijacked planes on September 11, 2001, were Saudis, and an ongoing lawsuit accuses the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia of being complicit in the attacks.
&#8220;My husband, Tom Strada, you are missed more with each year that passes. But how can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder,&#8221; Strada said as many people in the audience responded with applause. &#8220;Yes, we finally made it into a court and have proved that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia fomented a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism around the globe and then sent its agents to support radical Islamist hijackers so they could attack you and all of our loved ones.&#8221;
&#8220;But for 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,&#8221; she added.
&#8220;They withheld evidence. They vetoed JASTA,&#8221; Strada continued, referring to former President Barack Obama&#8217;s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which was overridden by Congress. JASTA specifically focused on Saudi Arabia and allowed families of 9/11 victims to seek legal recourse against the Middle Eastern country.
&#8220;They broke promises, both public and private,&#8221; Strada said. &#8220;It has been one betrayal after another. President Trump can still change that. Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction that we have been suffering through.&#8221;
Strada then turned her attention to Vice President JD Vance, who was among those in attendance at the Ground Zero ceremony.
&#8220;Vice President Vance, thank you for being here today. Please carry that message back. Stand with the families, stand with the survivors, stand with Americans. As my husband Tom would have said, that is always the right thing to do.&#8221;
Tom Strada was killed after American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. His wife Terry is now the national chair of 9/11 Families United, which for years has sought to hold Saudi Arabia liable for the 9/11 attacks.
A federal appeals panel is set to hear more arguments next month on the alleged Saudi government connection to the 9/11 terror attacks. Next month, the court will focus on Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who has ties to the 9/11 hijackers and was on the payroll of Saudi intelligence, according to a 2017 FBI memo, The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/09/11/us-news/sept-11-widow-blasts-saudis-on-25th-anniversary-of-attacks-no-justice/">reported</a>.
The 9/11 Families United scored a major legal win last year when a federal judge rejected Saudi Arabia&#8217;s attempt to dismiss the plaintiffs&#8217; claims. The federal judge determined that there was enough evidence to claim that the kingdom employed two people to help the 9/11 hijackers, according to <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/09/11/911-widow-saudi-arabia-trump">Axios</a>.
The Saudi government has denied any involvement in the planning or coordination of the terror attacks that killed 2,977 people in New York City, Arlington, Virginia, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Trump has maintained a close relationship with Saudi Arabia, securing major economic and defense deals with the kingdom. Earlier this year, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Trump at the White House and was asked by a reporter about the accusations leveled against his country by the 9/11 families.
&#8220;We have to focus on reality, reality based in CIA documents and based on a lot of documents that Osama bin Laden used Saudi people in that event for one main purpose &#8230; to destroy the American-Saudi relation[ship],&#8221; bin Salman said.

The 25th Anniversary Of The September 11th Attacks

9/11 Widow Goes Off Script, Calls Out 25 Years Of ‘Betrayal’ At Ground Zero

ground zero

saudi arabia

september 11 attacks

terry strada

President Donald Trump urged the nation never to forget the heroes who lost their lives responding to the 9/11 terror attacks. 
Trump made the plea at a ceremony at the Pentagon on Friday near the location where one of the hijacked planes hit. Throughout his speech, the president highlighted the actions of firefighters and others who responded to the terror attacks. 
“No one can ever prepare for a day like 9/11 — but we can always choose to be the kind of nation the world saw in those days after,” Trump said. “We can raise our children to know that their country is good, that their fathers are brave, and that our flag is a symbol of justice and freedom.”
During his speech, Trump told the story of New York City Fire Department Captain Timothy Stackpole, who died after he ran into the South Tower after Islamic terrorists smashed a plane into it. Stackpole was off duty when he responded to the attack. Stackpole’s family attended the Pentagon ceremony. 
“We can be a nation whose heroes are not fanatics for an abstract cause,” Trump said. “But the kind who race into buildings and give their lives on a Tuesday morning for strangers they&#8217;ve never met.”
Trump added that &#8220;the light shines in the darkness,&#8221; and said future generations would honor the heroes of 9/11, “who no age will erase from the memory of time.” 
“On days like 9/11, we learn what a country is truly made of. We&#8217;re learning right now what we&#8217;re made of,” Trump said. “We have to be strong, we have to be smart. And Americans are made of a goodness, [a] spirit that can transcend any earthly force.”
Trump also highlighted the actions of the passengers on board United Airlines Flight 93, one of the hijacked planes. After hijackers took over the plane, the passengers fought back and forced the plane to crash-land into an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 
Commemorations for the 25th anniversary of the attack were held across the country on Friday, including at Ground Zero in Manhattan and Shanksville. Vice President JD Vance attended the ceremony at Ground Zero along with all four living former presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

President Trump, Military Leaders Attend Pentagon 9/11 Observance Ceremony

Trump Honors The Heroes Of 9/11: ‘The Light Shines In The Darkness’

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Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III will retire at the end of the year following seven years at the institution&#8217;s helm and a contentious period of clashes with the Trump administration over how American history should be presented.
Bunch, 73, <a href="https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/smithsonian-secretary-lonnie-g-bunch-iii-announces-retirement">announced</a> his retirement Tuesday with “very mixed emotions and heartfelt gratitude.” He has served as the Smithsonian’s secretary since 2019 and was the first African American to hold the institution’s top position.
Bunch rejected the suggestion that the administration’s pressure directly caused his departure. In an interview with the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/arts/design/smithsonian-secretary-lonnie-bunch-resigns.html">New York Times</a>, he said, “now’s the time,” while acknowledging that the political fight had been stressful. 
“I have to be honest, it has been stressful,” Bunch said. “And at a certain point, I’d like to wake up in the morning and not look at my cellphone.”
The announcement nevertheless comes after more than a year of increasingly direct confrontation between the Smithsonian and the Trump administration.
In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/">Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History</a>,” directing officials to address what the administration described as “improper ideology” at the Smithsonian and other federally affiliated cultural institutions. 
The order accused the Smithsonian of promoting narratives that portrayed American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive. It directed Vice President JD Vance, through his position on the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work to remove such ideology from the institution.
The White House then conducted a broad review of Smithsonian museums and exhibitions. In July, the White House released a report titled “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/07/saving-americas-story/">Saving America’s Story</a>,” which accused leadership at the National Museum of American History of allowing ideological concerns to influence its presentation of the nation’s history.
Trump then ordered federal officials to install signage outside the National Museum of American History addressing what the administration described as inaccurate information about American history.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum later <a href="https://www.doi.gov/media/document/department-interior-letter-smithsonian-institution">accused</a> museum officials of allowing a “radical institutional ideology” to permeate the National Museum of American History and argued that the result was an effort to weaken Americans’ shared national identity.
The Smithsonian pushed back against the administration’s characterization of its work. The institution is structurally independent from the executive branch, with its secretary selected by the Smithsonian Board of Regents. 
The board includes Vance, members of Congress, citizen regents, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who serves as the Smithsonian’s chancellor.
Roberts praised Bunch following Tuesday’s announcement, saying the secretary had “pursued excellence in the telling of our nation’s story” and that the Regents had benefited from his “wisdom, vision and leadership.”
Bunch spent nearly 38 years at the Smithsonian. He first joined the institution in 1978 and held several curatorial and leadership positions before leaving in 2000. He returned in 2005 to lead the creation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016.
He became Smithsonian secretary three years later. 
“I have spent nearly half of my life working at and being part of the Smithsonian family,” Bunch said in his retirement announcement. “What a privilege.” 
Bunch is expected to remain in the position through the end of the year while the Board of Regents determines his successor.

“American Aspirations” Exhibit at the Smithsonian Castle

Smithsonian Chief At Center Of Trump Fight Over American History To Retire

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America&#8217;s birth rate is too low, just like the rest of the West. And now we&#8217;re being told the solution to all of this is — you won&#8217;t believe it — more government involvement.
It is true that America&#8217;s birth rate is too low. We are well below the replacement rate in the United States. We&#8217;re doing better than most of Europe, but it&#8217;s still too low. The birth rate of virtually all industrialized countries is below the replacement rate, with one exception: Israel.
Because we are not producing enough children, we have a migration crisis, a consequence of needing people to fill jobs and pay the taxes that fund our future obligations. We are also headed toward national bankruptcy.
We spent all of the money borrowing on a future that doesn&#8217;t exist, and then we imported entire swaths of humans from other parts of the world where they don&#8217;t have fertility rate problems.
How do we reverse that trend? According to many people on both the Right and the Left, the answer is the government. Never mind that government policies have exacerbated the problems of family non-formation and the lack of childbearing at virtually every step imaginable.
The federal government has promoted birth control and abortion, disincentivized marriage, and at every turn removed all economic benefits of being involved in social fabric-building activities like church. Government policies have torn apart the systems that cause people to have children.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2502?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Yet the answer to people not having babies, according to these folks, is for the government to pay you to have more babies.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/us/politics/stay-at-home-parents-subsidies.html">reported</a>:
<blockquote>The Trump administration is moving to allow married couples with a stay-at-home spouse to collect child care subsidies, a policy championed by Vice President JD Vance, using funds from a federal program intended to assist working parents, according to people familiar with the discussions. The change would create the only federal subsidy to pay parents to stay home and raise their children.</blockquote>
Where is the money coming from? Apparently, they&#8217;re going to use an HHS fund created in the 1990s to help low-income and working-class parents afford childcare so they can go to work or school.
Let&#8217;s agree that we need more married couples having more babies in America.
Then we should ask a couple of questions. Is it the government&#8217;s role to promote this? Will this policy actually work?
Let’s start with the basics. Not all forms of government are the same. The jobs of the federal government and your local government are not the same.
Everyone likes to ignore this. The Constitution is written the way that it is for a reason. Every amendment to the Constitution is a restriction on the power of the federal government; it doesn&#8217;t have to do with state government.
For example, the First Amendment says Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. It says nothing about what state or local governments can do; it says only what Congress cannot do, because the Founders understood Montesquieu, and they understood that there&#8217;s a lot you can do at the local community level that they shouldn&#8217;t be doing at the federal level.
That is why criminal law is typically local. If you commit a murder, you will be prosecuted by the state, not by the federal government, because it&#8217;s not the job of the federal government to be involved.
Different levels of government do different things, which is important when it comes to policies like this one. So if you, in your neighborhood, want to facilitate the common good by voting for subsidies to new moms, I don&#8217;t see any problem with that at all. I know a lot of communities that do this sort of stuff, even on a private level, just as my own Jewish community does. Some cities have a quasi-tax as part of synagogue membership that subsidizes childhood education. That&#8217;s all consensual. It makes perfect sense. People are buying into it.
But local governments and communities are not the same as the federal government. The federal government was designed in order to protect particular rights and prevent particular abuses.
It is a government of enumerated powers and limited jurisdiction. It was never instituted for the purpose of generally promoting “the common good.”
That’s because the bigger the polity gets, the bigger the area and population you&#8217;re governing, the less agreement there is on what the common good actually constitutes, which is why the federal government, traditionally speaking, has handled things like border policy, federal defense policy, and national debt issues. Those were things the federal government was designed to do.
But when it came to local stuff, you could have much more intrusive government at the local level. You just didn&#8217;t need it as much.
This is the paradox of government. Where social fabric is high, government is more appropriate because there&#8217;s broader agreement, but government is also significantly less necessary because everybody agrees on the standard without government involvement.
The more you abstract up the chain, the higher the level of government, the less agreement there is. Thus, the heavier the hand of government necessary to promote a particular vision of the common good, the less legitimate that vision is, because fewer people agree.
Some politicians seem to think the federal government has the generalized capacity to promote the common good. The problem is that there is no limiting principle in a democracy once you say that the federal government is here to promote the common good without defining the common good.
The Left is promoting its version of the common good with the gigantic government gun.
Furthermore, many of the people pushing this policy are making a category error. They think that people not having babies can be fixed by material circumstances, that if they point the government gun at you or the money hose of the government, this will make things better.
But the problem, as religious people should know, is not a lack of government subsidies.
It is a lack of social fabric, patriotism, and spiritual preparedness for having kids. That is the reason people are having kids in religious communities. Religious Catholics are still having tons of kids; Mormons are having tons of kids; Orthodox Jews are having tons of kids; evangelical Protestants are having a lot of kids.
The problem will not be solved by throwing money at people.
There is an argument being made that this is the best we can do, that we&#8217;re not going to be able to dismantle the welfare state. Thus, we should use the power of the ring for our own good. It is a gift. We should wield it.
What&#8217;s funny about this is that many of the same people promoting pragmatism in government here are utterly unpragmatic about how government actually works and where the votes are right now. They are also utterly unpragmatic about the fact that when you maximize the size and scope of government, eventually you will lose, and all the people you hate will control that government.
They think it&#8217;s a good idea. But it isn&#8217;t actually a good idea, because when you expand the size and scope of the federal government, if you think that you can wield the ring of power, usually the next one to wield it is Gollum.
This takes us to the second question: Will this policy work? Government, historically, has done a terrible job of incentivizing childbearing. Government policies have radically undermined the kinship network. One of the things that allows you to have lots of kids, as in my own personal life, is having family, grandparents, and a lot of friends nearby.
If my nieces and nephews step out of line, I&#8217;ll tell them to cut it out. The same is true of my kids with their uncles and aunts, and certainly of my parents and my wife&#8217;s parents.
All of the government&#8217;s policies have been designed to eviscerate that kinship network in favor of the government doing the job, and the government can&#8217;t do the job. Grandparents used to move in with the kids as they aged. The purpose wasn&#8217;t just to take care of grandpa and grandma. It was also because grandpa and grandma helped take care of the grandkids.
Social Security basically took that away. So now grandma and grandpa have money from the government, and mom and dad, because they didn’t feel the need to take care of grandma and grandpa, shuttled them off to a retirement community or retirement home. And so the entire kinship network breaks down.
Welfare undermined marriage. The entire welfare state was designed to alleviate the consequences of making poor life decisions. If you got pregnant out of wedlock — we&#8217;re not talking about cases of rape or something like that — large-scale welfare was designed to alleviate the consequences of single motherhood.
People had babies because the economic consequences of having a baby weren&#8217;t as dire. Subsidies for things like college and birth control delayed both marriage and childbearing. Government subsidies for things like childcare drove childcare costs up.
There is a magic formula for not having babies.
Reason #1: High use of birth control. Birth control is the one medical intervention that has achieved many Leftist goals because the birth control pill was designed to separate sex from childbearing.
This is not to say that no one should ever use the birth control pill, or that people should never be on birth control; that’s your business. We live in a free country.
But the birth control pill, which separated sex from childbearing, which meant sex and marriage were no longer connected, separated all this stuff. So now people could have fun, and there would be no consequences.
You can say that&#8217;s a good thing, but one consequence was fewer marriages and fewer kids. In the 1940s, when people were having lots of seven-month babies, they&#8217;d get married. I understand everybody now pretends that was a horrible, terrible thing. But that&#8217;s how pretty much all human society worked for several thousand years, and it wasn&#8217;t the end of the world.
Reason #2: High levels of economic development. As societies get richer, kids move from being an asset class to an economic drain.
If you lived in a poor society in America 150 years ago and were on a farm, your kids came home and worked. Many stories describe 17-year-olds entering the workforce to help support the family. The idea was to have lots of kids, because some of them would die when they were young, and the ones who were left over were going to help work the farm.
But now children are not actually contributing to your household, economically speaking.
They&#8217;re now a net cost. Kids are very expensive; it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to raise your kids. They go from being a net economic benefit to a net economic cost that changes the economic structure.
Reason #3: Finally and most importantly, there has been a decline in religion and civic nationalism.
When people believe that there is a religious duty to have kids, they have kids. When people believe part of their patriotic duty is to provide a next generation of patriots, they have kids.
Now notice something common to all these factors and why people who used to have kids no longer have kids. You used to have kids because you needed labor, and you used to have kids because God said so, and because your country needed it. Those were all necessities.
And then we got rid of the necessities, and people decided not to have kids.
People don&#8217;t have kids because they don&#8217;t have to have kids.
Which is why a revival of faith and patriotism is a necessary prerequisite for our survival.

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The Thing America Lost Before It Stopped Having Babies

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