WATCH: Vance says administration will temporarily halt some Medicaid funding for Minnesota over fraud concerns

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration will “temporarily suspend” some Medicaid funding for Minnesota over fraud concerns, Vice President J.D. Vance announced Wednesday, as part of what he described as a crackdown on the misuse of public funds.

Vice President J.D. Vance and Dr. Mehmet Oz held a press conference on Wednesday. Watch their statements in the player above.

Vance, who made the announcement with Dr. Mehmet Oz, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the administration is taking this action “in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes seriously its obligations to be good stewards of the American people’s tax dollars.”

Wednesday’s move is part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to highlight fraud across the country.

The efforts come after allegations of fraud involving day care centers run by Somali residents in Minneapolis sparked a widespread anti-immigration crackdown in the Midwestern city, sparking widespread protests. President Donald Trump, in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, announced that Vance would lead a “national war on fraud.”

Oz, who referred to people who commit fraud as “self-serving scoundrels,” said the federal government will defer paying $259 million to Minnesota to fund Medicaid, the health care safety net for low-income Americans.

“This is not an issue with the people of Minnesota, this is an issue with the leadership of Minnesota and other states not taking Medicaid preservation seriously,” he said.

Oz said the administration informed Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz during his public announcement. Messages sent to Walz spokesmen were not immediately responded to.

The latest action was motivated in part by a series of fraud cases, including a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future accused of stealing pandemic aid intended for school meals. Prosecutors estimated the losses resulting from this case at $300 million.

Since then, Trump has targeted Minnesota’s Somali diaspora with immigration enforcement actions and made a series of disparaging comments about the community. During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump said “pirates” had “plundered Minnesota.”

Federal agencies have also been enlisted to help target fraud in Minnesota.

Last December, the US Treasury Department issued an order requiring money transfer services people use to send money to Somalia to provide additional verification to the Treasury.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told Minnesota in January that it intends to freeze portions of payments for some Medicaid programs deemed high-risk. The state said those cuts would add up to more than $2 billion annually if they continue and has filed an administrative appeal.

The Justice and Treasury Departments will also participate in these efforts, and will look at tax records to uncover fraud, Vance said in an interview on Fox News earlier Wednesday.

“There’s a whole bunch of tools that we’ve never used,” Vance said.

Associated Press writers Jeff Mulvihill in Philadelphia, Steve Karnofsky in Minneapolis and Fatima Hussain in Washington contributed to this report.