In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Donald Trump struck a confident and defiant tone in defending his first year back in office while promising a “war on fraud” after mentioning Maine by name.
Trump delivered his speech — the longest State of the Union on record — to a heavily divided Congress, receiving steady applause from his fellow Republicans and little other than stone-faced glares and momentary bursts of outrage and frustration from Democrats. Only one member of Maine’s delegation, Republican Sen. Susan Collins, attended the address.
Trump’s second term has brought a heavy focus on Maine, which faced federal investigations following his sharp White House exchange with Gov. Janet Mills over the state’s laws around transgender students in athletics. His administration surged immigration enforcement agents into the state last month before it ended following backlash to a bigger one in Minnesota.
Maine and Minnesota were linked again in Trump’s speech. He alleged that Somali immigrant “pirates” have “pillaged” and “ransacked” Minnesota through fraud that he pegged at $19 billion, a likely overstatement that appears to refer to a federal prosecutor’s estimate that half of the $18 billion in reimbursements from high-risk programs could be fraudulent.
There was a wave of federal prosecutions for alleged Medicaid fraud in Minnesota last year, with almost all of them targeted at the Somali community. Maine stopped payments to an immigrant health care provider over alleged interpreter fraud in December, and the Trump administration has recently ramped up pressure on Mills on the issue.
“We have all the information, and in actuality, the number is much higher than that, and California, Massachusetts, Maine and many other states are even worse,” he said.
Trump said was launching a “war on fraud” to be led by Vice President JD Vance. He also called on Congress to pass a law banning states from granting commercial driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.
Shortly after, Trump asked everyone in the room to stand if they agreed with the statement that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
Republicans stood and cheered. Democrats stayed seated. Trump told the latter they should be ashamed of themselves. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, who was born in Somalia, screamed “Liar,” and “You have killed Americans!”
Story by Kevin Rector of the Los Angeles Times. BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
