Morning Wire - Vance Seeks Fraud Fix & Tehran’s Deadline Extended | 3.27.26

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Vice President JD Vance is appointed to lead the administration's anti-fraud task force, President Trump is giving Iran a little more runway before carrying out his threat to strike their power plants, and the California governor’s race is heating up as fraud discovery raises questions for Democrat leadership. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2703- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Balance of Nature - Go to https://BalanceofNature.com to subscribe and save today.Quince - Go to https://Quince.com/WIRE for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. - - -Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacymorning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The president's anti-fraud task force hits the ground running, targeting massive programs like Medicare and unemployment insurance. This is a problem that is festered in this country for far too long, and far too few people have actually wanted to do anything about it. I'm Daily Wire, executive editor John Bickley, with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, March 27th. This is Morning Wire. President Trump warns Iran that the window for diplomacy is narrowing, while negotiations appear to gain traction. They want to make a deal. The reason they want to make a deal is they have been just beat this shit. And new polling shakes Democrats in California's race for governor.

Could the state's top two system actually knock them off the ticket? Everyone's on the same ballot, and then the top two finishes, regardless of party, go through to the general election. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. This episode is sponsored by Balance of Nature. Does anyone else feel like nutrition is getting way too complicated? We used to just eat food. Now you need a PhD to read the back of a cereal box.

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force in the wake of shocking revelations about fraud throughout the United States. Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olahan got the first look at the administration's plans and she joins us now. Morning, Mary Margaret. So let's look at this new plan. What is the administration proposing to do? Good morning. So yes, this memo we obtained sent by Vice President. Jady Vance, who's the head of this anti-fraud task force, it's sent to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and other members of the task force and it lays out this four-part plan to tackle fraud. Their primary objective is to stop fraud that's, quote, bleeding the federal government dry, robbing taxpayers and denying honest Americans the services which they have paid for.

So the task force plans to prosecute those committing fraud and to recover as much fraudulently obtained money as they can, they're going to be focusing on high spend. low verification programs, which are the ones that are the most ripe for fraud and abuse. Now, recovering money that's lost to fraud is really difficult. The federal government loses about $250 billion annually due to fraud, and it only recovers about $10 billion of that, if that gives you a better idea of how much we're losing and how much we're getting back. That's so much lost and so little recouped, as you've said. So what are the immediate steps the task force plans to take here? Yeah, so they have a bunch of steps that they're focused on right

away. The first one is to kind of get a picture of all the agencies across the administration and what anti-fraud measures are currently in place. So that's step one. Step two, and this is interesting, they want the task force to report back on whether the Biden administration failed to actually fight fraud at all. You know, if they find evidence of that, they will be making a big deal out of it. But they're also planning to assess and implement existing data analysis tools in tech. They want to identify more tools that they can use to prevent fraud, create teams, throughout all these government agencies that can combat fraud and then propose new legislation and regulations to prevent fraud in the first place.

All right. So lots on the docket for this task force. We've talked about the fraud uncovered by YouTuber Nick Shirley in Minnesota on this show. But is that what spurred this fraud task force to get to work in the first place? Yeah, it's definitely part of it. But Nick's stories were not the first ones we've heard about the fraud that's going on throughout the United States. Obviously, there has been a lot of disqualification. discussion of Tim Walsh in the fraud of Minnesota. And the vice president has been very vocal about wanting to target this and wanting to look into it more further. Now, obviously, there's been a lot of talk about the war going on in Iran and concerns that Americans have on the home front. This is an

easy way for the administration to say, look, we're working on what's going on in the United States, too. Fraud is a huge problem, and we're focusing on that as well. And they're determined to prosecute fraudsters for a number of reasons, and they highlighted these in the memo. They talk about the American people's right to justice, how they deserve to have justice from this fraud, the need to establish deterrence against fraud, and the need for accountability. And the memo says, and I'm quoting here, the widespread fraud has not been committed by isolated bad actors. Large and powerful networks have furthered this fraud. The American people have a right to know how the fraud problem has gotten so bad, and prosecutions will shed light on how this happened. So like I said before,

they're going to be focusing on these high spend, low verification programs that I mentioned, such as Medicare and Medicaid, for example, has $2 trillion a year in spending. Well, the Department of Labor's unemployment insurance program has $43.5 billion a year in spending. And they view these programs as ripe for fraud and abuse. And the last thing, you guys, is worth pointing out that Vice President J.D. Vance, this is his project. Trump has joked in meetings in the Oval Office about how Kamala Harris' main project was borders are and how she really failed at that job and the whole country knows it. The president

jaded vans, this is his job, and he better not fail at it. And nobody thinks that he will and the president has complete faith in jd vans. But at the same time, the eyes of the nation are on him to see how he handles this. Yeah, certainly an important issue for Americans across this country. So a big moment for him an opportunity. But like you said, got to follow through. Mary Margaret, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. I am very excited to tell you about our sponsor today. Quince. Quince is an online retailer that sells high quality, classic clothing and home items made of real materials like cotton, cashmere, silk, European linen, all for extremely affordable prices. And today I am wearing this linen shirt, which I actually have in several colors,

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Daily Wire contributor Tim Pierce is here to talk about the state of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. So, Tim, this has been a very chaotic negotiation process due largely to the fact that it's not totally clear who's in charge of Iran at the moment. But the administration did share some insights during the cabinet meeting on Thursday. What did we learn? Right. There's lots to parse on the reporting on this. but the president believes that they are in talks with the right people. He gave a few updates on the situation in that cabinet meeting, and he revealed that whoever is in talks on the Iranian side

proved that they are influential. That proof involved a present that the president touted earlier this week. They said to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there, we're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil. This was two days ago. and they'll sail up tomorrow. That was three days ago. I said, well, I guess we're dealing with the right people.

About the Friday deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the president said it's ultimately up to Tehran, whether or not a deal is struck. They are begging to make a deal, not me. They're begging to make a deal. And anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal. As it stands now, if Iran doesn't fully open the stray, Trump has ordered the military to strike critical energy infrastructure. which would have consequences not just for the regime, but would cut power for Iranian citizens as well.

Though on Thursday, as John noted, the president did give the regime more time to open up the strait, and he set a new deadline for April 6th. The alternative is that Iran opens the strait, and related to that, Israel appears to have killed the official responsible for actually closing it. It said on Thursday that it took out the commander of Iran's navy, which U.S. strikes have essentially sunk already anyway. Now, President Trump has put a lot of pressure on U.S. allies to step up and assist in opening the straight. Last week, a few nations offered some varying degrees of support. Where do things stand now? Right. Trump is not impressed, and he's making that clear.

We spend trillions of dollars protecting Europe, protecting the countries of NATO. They weren't there for us for small time. This is small time. You know what? Venezuela is a big deal. but it's not the big one. They weren't there. So what makes you think they'd be there if we needed them for some day? Now, maybe somewhat ironically for the Europeans,

their main interest in the strait is energy prices. But some in the business community are more concerned about the impact on energy prices in the long term if the U.S. does not meet its goals in Iran and instead withdraws too early. Here's BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink, saying that the real risk to affordable energy is in Tehran. If there's a cessation of war, and yet Iran remains a threat, a threat to trade, a threat to the threats of Harmouth, then I would argue that we could have years, years of, you know, above $100, closer to $150 oil.

For his part, Trump said Thursday that taking over Iran's oil, like the U.S. did in Venezuela, is still an option. Are you think you can take control of Iran's oil? It's an option? I mean, I wouldn't talk about it, but it's an option. So while the administration is signaling that the war is coming to an end soon, there are still a lot of ways left that this thing could go. Well, I think everyone is hoping we can stick to that four to six week timeline that we've been promised. Tim, thanks for coming on.

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The conditions apply. The California Governor's race is heating up as the June primary raises big

concerns among Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans say they've found shocking levels of fraud that should

come back to bite their opponents. Joining us to discuss is Daily Wire Political Reporter Cameron Arcan, Morning Cameron. So let's start with what's gotten the Democrats' attention. They're very much alarmed about this. This new polling on the governor's race. What do we need to know there? So for context here, the Democrats have a large pool of candidates in this top two primary that's going to be in June in this governor's race. Now, the California Democratic Party chair has warned his own people that, hey, if not enough of you drop out, we could have a slim but real chance of a Republican lockout in June because of the

jungle primary system. So then what he did is he went and commissioned a poll, and it showed exactly what he was concerned about it, had Republican Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, in those top two slots. And then you had three Democrats tied. That was Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter, and Tom Steyer, tied at 10 percent. And then you had some stragglers, other Democrats in the race, at three percent and lower. So a lot of concerns there on the Democratic side about this. And then you have some Republicans on the flip side of this, worrying that Democrats will eventually consolidate. And when you have two major Republican candidates in the race, they're worried that it will then cause a Democrat lockout, leaving Republicans out of this race. So a lot of concern here, but there's still a lot of time for this situation to develop.

But Democrats are feeling a little anxious right now about this. On the Republican side, we do know that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has been in the headlines. He's battling with the state's Democrat AG over this recent seizure of ballots. That's turned a lot of heads. What's happening there? So Bianco, who is the Riverside County Sheriff, is at odds with Rob Bonta, the state's Attorney General, over the seizure of 650,000 ballots related to the prop 50 election this past November. That's that redistricting amendment that reshaped the state's congressional maps. Now, here's what Bianco said about this the other day.

For those not aware, we are conducting an investigation into an alleged and potential 45,000 extra votes counted than the number of ballots cast in the November 2025 special election. Bonta's office is arguing that the sheriff's office does not have the authority to do this, but a California court ruled this week that this can move forward. Now, the other major Republican candidate, Steve Hilton, is also making waves for some of his proposals, including his goal to crack down on fraud in the state of California. What has he said on that issue? So Steve Hilton has been making a big point about fraud, especially in the state government in California,

particularly after we've seen some nationwide concerns like this, especially with Medicaid fraud and Minnesota. Now, in regards to what we're seeing in California, morning wire's supposed to, to Hilton about some of these details. Here's what he had to say. We found from the climate fund, they've got this thing called the greenhouse gas reduction fund, which is a stealth tax, a hidden tax on energy production and use, $1 billion with a B that was supposed to be spent on installing solar panels on low-income apartment buildings. Of that $1 billion, only $72 million was actually spent on that, 928 million diverted into Democrat political activism, including voter registration. That was our second fraud report. The first one was the cannabis tax. So when cannabis was

legalized in California, a tax was put on it, supposedly to fund substance abuse prevention. $370 million there that we found. All of it parceled out in tiny little grants to Democrat activist groups to do there to build the Democrat political machine. These issues are certainly not unique to California, as we've seen in other states. Now, fraud has obviously become a hot topic in many other statewide races across the country, particularly in the Senate race in Minnesota. But as for California, we'll definitely continue to see this evolve. Republicans would certainly love to see California in play in this race for governor.

We'll see if Democrats are able to unite behind one candidate or not. Cameron, thanks so much for reporting. Thank you. Another story we're tracking. As hours-long lines continue to plague airports across the country, President Trump says he'll now sign an executive order to get TSA agents paid. The agency has been unfunded for over a month as Congress struggles to make a deal and end the DHS shutdown.

The president blames Democrats for the standoff, calling it a national crisis, and announced Thursday that he's using his authority to get agents paid and keep travel moving. Details on how and when the order will be implemented have not yet. been released. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show, now you can watch for free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.