By The American Tribune | Created at 2026-06-19 10:22:11 | Updated at 2026-06-19 12:41:30
2 hours ago
Speaking during an interview with podcast host Benny Johnson, Trump Administration Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling explained that the administration has uncovered tens upon tens of billions of dollars worth of fraud, and added that he would be cutting off blue states that don’t get the fraud under control so that federal taxpayers are not endlessly bilked to pay for fraud schemes.
As background, Mr. Keith Sonderling was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 12, 2025, to be the 38th United States Deputy Secretary of Labor. A little over a year later, on April 20, 2026, Mr. Sonderling was designated by President Donald J. Trump to be the Acting Secretary of Labor. Such is the role in which he is still serving.
So, appearing in that role on Benny Johnson’s podcast, Sonderling explained the extent of a massive form of fraud that has been allowed to go on for far too long, and commented to Benny on how his administration plans on dealing with it. Such came when Benny asked him, “Employment insurance fraud, a massive vector of fraud in the country, how are you going to be solving this?”
Replying, the acting Secretary of Labor began by noting that the Trump Administration has made solving the fraud issue a priority, saying, “Yeah, well, let’s take a step back. And first, we need to thank President Trump for establishing the task force on fraud at the White House and appointing our great Vice President JD Vance to leading it.”
Continuing on that point, he emphasized just how important the matter is to the administration, and noted that the Department of Labor is involved in cracking down on the schemes targeting taxpayer dollars. He said, “They’ve put such tremendous efforts across all agencies to really root out fraud and root out fraud, particularly in government programs that gives out your hard-earned taxpayers’ dollars to individuals. So, the Department of Labor’s role in this is related to unemployment insurance, and with unemployment insurance, we need to take a step back.”
That’s when he got to the matter of the massive extent of the fraud America has seen. He said, “During COVID, $900 billion was given out to help people get back on their feet, to help people deal with some of the job losses related to COVID, but during the Biden administration, $135 billion of that money was stolen by fraud.”
Continuing, the Acting Labor Secretary noted the mind-boggling scale of that vast fraud, saying, “So, think about the scale of that. $135 billion is one of the largest taxpayer thefts in history, and when you look about that, how rampant the fraud was across the country.”
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And, noting what sorts of people were engaged in it, he said, “It was related to paying people who were in prison, who obviously aren’t able to work, paying people who were under 14, three-year-olds, seven-year-olds getting unemployment insurance, and you know, how did that happen?”
Concluding, he noted that states were just letting taxpayer dollars pour into the hands of fraudsters, and that the administration is taking “extraordinary” moves to try and ensure that never happens again. He said, “It was a lack of controls, it was states just turning a blind eye and letting this money flow. So, with the Vice President’s task force, it’s really making sure that never happens again, and we’re taking some really extraordinary measures to ensure that happen, that that never happens.”
Benny, commenting on what that meant in a post on X in which he shared the clip, noted that the Acting Labor Secretary was effectively sending a message to all states that if they don’t get fraud under control, they are going to see their access to federal taxpayer dollars yanked away. “Trump’s Acting Labor Secretary Just Uncovered BILLIONS in Fraud, Warns ALL States He is About to CUT OFF Funding,” he said.
Watch the clip here:
Trump’s Acting Labor Secretary Just Uncovered BILLIONS in Fraud, Warns ALL States He is About to CUT OFF Funding
Keith Sonderling: “During COVID, $900B was given out to help people get back on their feet, deal with some of the job loss. But during the Biden admin, $135B of that… pic.twitter.com/2cQ7Sn3NHE
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 17, 2026
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
