Vice President JD Vance turned a campaign-style stop in Bangor, Maine, into a pitch for the Trump administration’s fraud crackdown, using the platform to back former Gov. Paul LePage in Maine’s politically competitive 2nd Congressional District while attacking Democrats and casting government programs as a site of theft from ordinary people.
At Bangor International Airport, Vance told the crowd, “Let’s kick Janet Mills to the curb and let’s send Paul LePage to Washington to help us fight the fraudsters and protect all of you.” He also said, “You are the first victim of fraud,” and later added, “My friends, this has gone on for far too long. You have been fleeced by your own government for far too long, and we are stopping it every single day.”
Who Gets to Define ‘Fraud’
Vance, whom President Donald Trump dubbed the “fraud czar,” said the Maine stop was the first expressly billed as a stop to talk about fraud-fighting efforts rather than the economic-focused message he had delivered in other visits. The article said Vance has mentioned anti-fraud efforts in stops around the country in recent weeks on behalf of Republican candidates. The message was packaged as a public service, but it was delivered as campaign material, with the machinery of federal power and partisan politics running side by side.
The event came a day after Vance said the administration’s endeavor to combat fraud in government programs would not be political or partisan. In Bangor, that claim sat awkwardly beside the rest of the performance: a vice president promoting a Republican candidate, attacking Democrats, and presenting the administration’s agenda as a rescue mission for people supposedly being cheated by the very programs meant to support them.
Vance compared LePage to Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who has sparred with the Trump administration over transgender athletes in high school sports. Mills is prevented by term-limit laws from running again and recently dropped out of a heated Democratic primary race for the Senate seat held by Republican Susan Collins. The article said the seat is critical to Democratic hopes of reclaiming control of the chamber in this year’s midterms.
Vance also said, “Sometimes I get frustrated with Susan Collins. I almost wish she was more partisan. If she was as partisan as I wish she was, she would not be a good fit for the people of Maine.” Collins was in Washington on Thursday and did not join the trip.
Who Pays for the Political Theater
Before Vance arrived, LePage said that if elected to represent Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, he would work with the Trump administration to crack down on fraud in social safety programs, which he characterized as rampant in his state. LePage said, “The American people are done being taken for a ride. It’s time for the Maine people and the Maine taxpayer to be put front and center.”
That framing puts the burden squarely on taxpayers and recipients of social programs, while the administration and its allies claim the authority to decide what counts as abuse. The article does not say what specific fraud was found in Maine, only that the Trump administration’s characterizations were challenged by a policy group.
Maine Center for Economic Policy, a left-leaning policy group, said in a statement that the Trump administration’s characterizations of fraud and social programs in the state were inaccurate. The group said, “Fraud should always be investigated and stopped. But Mainers deserve facts, not political fearmongering designed to undermine health care for hundreds of thousands of people.”
Nirav Shah, the former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director who is running for governor, said in an email to supporters and the media that Vance was visiting Maine as the costs of necessities such as heating oil and gas surged in the state. Shah said, “That is the record JD Vance is bringing to Maine on Thursday. That is the record the Maine Republicans hosting him are ‘honored’ to celebrate.”
The Election Machine Keeps Grinding
Early voting was already underway in Maine for the state’s June 9 primary elections for offices including governor, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. The article said the state has supported Democratic presidential candidates in consecutive elections going back to 1992, though Trump carried Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in the last three elections, capturing one of the state’s four electoral votes.
In the governor’s race, seven Republicans, five Democrats and several independents were vying to replace Mills, and Vance noted that some of the candidates were in attendance at the rally but declined to endorse any of them when asked by a reporter. The scene showed the usual election carousel: candidates, surrogates, and party branding, all unfolding while the underlying power over social programs, budgets, and enforcement remains concentrated above the people being told they are being protected.
A few dozen demonstrators stood across the street from the airport holding signs denouncing Vance and the Trump administration, and one held a giant caricature of the vice president’s head that has become a popular meme. Their presence was the clearest direct response in the article, a small but visible refusal to let the event pass as normal.
The article said Vance’s message also provided a preview of how he, seen as a likely 2028 GOP presidential candidate, could use the fraud crackdown as a central piece of his own political message in a future campaign. For now, the pitch in Bangor was simple: the people at the top claim they are cleaning up the mess, while the people at the bottom are told to trust the same apparatus that keeps showing up with new slogans and old power.