Tim Walz dropped his governor’s race because the Medicaid fraud scandal got too big to survive.
RFK Jr just showed exactly why – and froze $1 billion to prove it.
But neither governor can produce a single document proving the money was spent legally.
Dead People on the Payroll
The federal government froze $867 million from California and $200 million from Minnesota on Tuesday after AI-powered audits uncovered something that should land people in prison.
Both states billed Medicaid for services provided to people who were already dead.
California also ran up claims tied to over $221 million in payments for individuals with what CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz called “unsatisfactory immigration status” – people not legally eligible for federally funded Medicaid.
https://twitter.com/FoxBusiness/status/2079632052199018826?s=20
And California’s in-home supportive services spending exploded 24% over the past two years – double the national average.
Oz put it plainly: “If it smells like fraud, we’re not paying for it anymore.”
The Governors’ Response Tells You Everything
When the federal government asks you to prove your Medicaid claims are legitimate and you call it a “political stunt,” that’s not a defense.
That’s a confession.
Newsom’s office posted on X that the freeze is “the same recycled political stunt we’ve seen before” and claimed California is being targeted for political reasons – not fraud.
Walz argued the Trump administration “is cutting more money in healthcare than they’ve prosecuted for fraud.”
Think about that for a second.
RFK Jr.’s answer was simple: if Newsom and Walz want the billion dollars back, all they have to do is hand over documentation showing the payments were legitimate.
The silence since then has been deafening.
Minnesota Already Knew
This freeze didn’t come from nowhere.
In February 2026, the Trump administration froze $259 million in Medicaid funds from Minnesota – and Vance warned publicly that California was next.
Minnesota then quietly disenrolled roughly 3,000 Medicaid providers after they failed background checks and site visits.
https://twitter.com/TheOfficerTatum/status/2079625339739820033?s=20
Three thousand providers.
Not three. Not thirty.
Three thousand people who were supposedly delivering healthcare to low-income Minnesotans couldn’t pass a basic background check.
That’s the system Walz ran.
The Feeding Our Future scandal had already cost Minnesota $250 million – money meant to feed low-income children that ended up financing luxury cars, overseas accounts, and a market linked to an al-Qaeda affiliate.
Walz called that “political retribution” too.
He dropped out of his governor’s race last winter because even Minnesota Democrats stopped believing him.
What Biden Let Happen
RFK Jr. named former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra directly on Tuesday.
Becerra ran HHS under Biden and, according to Kennedy, gutted anti-fraud staffing, weakened oversight, and let the “pay and chase” model run unchecked – ship the money out the door, try to recover it later.
The scammers noticed.
Out-of-state operators flew into Minnesota, set up shop, and billed Medicaid for clients they had never met and services they never provided.
Two of them used ChatGPT to generate fake client notes when federal investigators asked for documentation.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2079579548375498964?s=20
The Justice Department charged 455 people last month for $6.5 billion in healthcare fraud – the largest combined federal and state anti-fraud action in American history.
Biden’s team was writing the checks the whole time.
The AI the Left Didn’t See Coming
The same AI tools that liberal politicians spent years trying to regulate and restrict just caught their governors stealing from the poor.
Kennedy calls it replacing “pay and chase” with real-time detection – stop the fraud before the check clears, not after.
Newsom can call it a political stunt all he wants.
The software doesn’t know what party you belong to.
It just found dead people on your Medicaid rolls.
Sources:
- Stephen Sorace, “Trump admin pausing over $1B in Medicaid payments to Minnesota, California over fraud, compliance concerns,” Fox News, July 21, 2026.
- Ally Goelz, “RFK Jr. yanks Medicaid funds to California and Minnesota, says Dems ‘opened the floodgates to theft,'” New York Post, July 21, 2026.
- “Trump Admin Freezing Over $1 Billion In Medicaid Payments To Two Blue States,” Daily Caller, July 21, 2026.
- “Trump Administration Prioritizes Affordability by Announcing Major Crackdown on Health Care Fraud,” CMS Press Release, February 25, 2026.
- “Minnesota Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in Charges Against 15 Defendants for Over $90M in Fraud,” U.S. Department of Justice, May 22, 2026.
- “Fraud Tourists Plead Guilty to Minneapolis Medicaid Fraud,” U.S. Department of Justice, February 10, 2026.
- “Tim Walz drops out of 2026 Minnesota governor’s race amid criticism over his handling of fraud,” CBS News Minnesota.