GOP plan to fire up base hits a brick wall

During the early months of Donald Trump's second presidency, he vowed to fight "waste, fraud and abuse" in the federal government. Now, more than one year and a half after Trump's return to the White House and less than three months away from the 2026 midterms, Vice President JD Vance is urging Republican lawmakers to tackle alleged abuse in federal safety-net programs. But according to Politico, something that Vance and his allies hope will fire up the GOP base is running into a brick wall in Congress.

"Finding cost savings by rooting out so-called government waste and fraud in Medicare, Medicaid and the federal food assistance program known as SNAP was a top priority for House Republicans, who set out earlier this year to pass another party-line reconciliation package on the heels of last year's 'big, beautiful bill' and June's immigration enforcement measure," journalists Mia McCarthy and Robert King report in Politico. "Many Republicans believe the fraud issue will have salience with voters amid larger concerns about affordability, since it would ostensibly involve returning lost funds to government health programs."

But according to the Politico reporter, "many" Republicans are "skeptical any such bill will ultimately reach the president's desk."

Rep. Riley Moore (R-West Virginia) told Politico, "It should be one of our top priorities, and I am very much in favor of seeing this in some type of reconciliation package."

Similarly, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee) told Politico that "if Congress is listening to the public," it should "have the guts" to move ahead with legislation on "fraud."

Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Florida) told Politico, "Allowing fraud to run rampant in the United States of America is a slap in the face to hard-working Americans."

But McCarthy and King report that "with less than 100 days until the midterms, Republicans who were eager to go home to their districts for August recess and fold significant fraud wins into affordability messaging have little to show for it."

House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) cautions that how Republican lawmakers tackle alleged fraud before the midterms is much different from tackling it after the midterms — which are set for Tuesday, November 3.

Arrington told Politico, "The political will that it takes to do any spending reform in 100 days prior to an historic midterm election is very different than the dynamics in the lame duck. You get past the election, and you got an invigorated body that is not thinking about their political life."