President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration has launched a fraud investigation into California, leveling broad accusations of corruption against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Democratic-led state without specifying what is being examined or which federal agency is involved.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday on Truth Social that a federal fraud investigation into California “has begun,” accusing the state under Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of being “more corrupt than Minnesota.”
Trump did not provide details about what the investigation would cover or which federal agency would lead it. A White House official told The Daily Wire there was “nothing to add” beyond the president’s post.
Trump’s remarks invoked scrutiny in Minnesota tied to an alleged welfare-related fraud scheme. The Daily Wire reported that Minnesota has faced allegations involving Somali-run day care providers inflating enrollment figures to receive additional public funding.
The comments also came a day after two California Republicans—Steve Hilton, who is running for governor, and Herb Morgan, who is running for state controller—warned of what they described as large-scale waste in state welfare programs, according to The Daily Wire, which cited a New York Post report. Hilton was quoted accusing California’s Democratic leadership of “corruption, fraud and abuse on an epic scale,” and claiming the state has operated under “16 years of one-party rule.”
Newsom’s office rejected Trump’s claim and attacked his credibility. In a statement published by The Daily Wire, the governor’s office called Trump “a deranged, habitual liar” and said Newsom’s administration has “blocked over $125 billion in fraud” since taking office.
Trump and Newsom have repeatedly clashed during Trump’s second term. The Daily Wire reported that Trump criticized Newsom’s handling of Southern California wildfire prevention shortly after the January inauguration, and later deployed the National Guard and Marines in response to anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles County in June. Trump also said he would support border czar Tom Homan in arresting Newsom over allegations the governor was impeding federal immigration enforcement, according to The Daily Wire.
Newsom has continued to criticize the troop deployment. In remarks cited by The Daily Wire from a Monday interview, Newsom accused Trump of “fraud” related to the mobilization and said it cost taxpayers “one-hundred-plus million dollars,” alleging troops were pulled away from other public-safety work.
Separately, litigation over Trump’s attempted National Guard deployments has produced mixed results across jurisdictions. In Illinois, a federal court order blocking a Chicago-area deployment remained in place after the Supreme Court declined to lift it on an emergency basis, with the high court saying the government had not identified adequate authority “at this preliminary stage,” according to ABC News and other reports.
The Daily Wire also reported that Trump said late last month that troops would be withdrawn from multiple cities, including Los Angeles, following an appeals-court ruling related to California—though details of that ruling and its scope were not independently confirmed in the sources reviewed for this report.
