Gov. Walz defends actions in fraud testimony

No, I never said any such thing. CBS News correspondent Jonah Kaplan is following this for us on Capitol Hill. Jonah, can you remind us how we got here and the significance of this hearing. It seems like a lifetime ago, but it was really only the end of December, beginning of January, when all of this fraud, $9 billion, according to federal prosecutors, over a variety of social programs in Minnesota that use federal funds to pay for certain things, whether it's meals for kids at school or whether it's behavioral health programs. They're administered by state programs, managed by state programs, but it's money from federal taxpayers. That's you. Wherever you live here in America. And this was used as the pretext by the Trump administration for Operation Metro Surge and the immigration crackdown. So here, we have Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, both former Congressmen, by the way. They know these halls. They know these players. They know the drill. But this is something Republicans in particular wanted to have them here to ask them what they knew and when they knew it. And according to Republicans, they want to paint a picture that these two individuals were complicit in allowing the fraud to continue, not that they were getting any benefits from the fraud, but that they knew about it and allowed it to continue out of fear that it would alienate a political base. So, Chairman Comer says his committee interviewed more than 30 whistleblowers. Did we learn anything new there? That is definitely something that we took away from. 30 witnesses. And of course, that there's this new report about 50 pages, again, linking, according to the Republicans who wrote it, Governor Walz and Keith Ellison, the attorney general, to this fraud scheme. But the arguments really have been around for several years. And that is, again, if you're talking about 98 people that have been charged, more than 60 convicted, most of them Somali Americans living in Minnesota, and so the question is and is there a smoking gun tying Governor Walz and Keith Ellison, the attorney general, to say, we know about the fraud, but we don't want to prosecute it because we don't want to appear racist. We don't want to look like we're targeting a minority group, and this maybe makes up the base of our voters. It's interesting, though, Democrats here on the committee are really pushing back and making this committee-- making this hearing a referendum on Operation Metro Surge and what they consider unfair targeting of Minnesota because of President Trump's animus for Governor Walz.

And, Jonah, while all of this is playing out, what's the latest on the Trump administration now withholding Medicaid funds from Minnesota? Has that been addressed at all today? That really hasn't been brought up. But we know that the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services withholding hundreds of millions of dollars. And this has been something that again, happened even before Operation Metro Surge. We heard of withholding funds for daycares and other child care development programs, and now, these programs. This is all part of what was the Trump administration's pressure campaign to get Minnesota to either comply with these protocols or other things related to potentially elections and voter rolls. But really, you're seeing the political fault lines here. Again, Republicans trying to tie these two individuals to the fraud, and Democrats trying to paint this as an unfair personal attack on Governor Walz and Minnesota because of President Trump. OK. Jonah Kaplan, thank you so much for your reporting today. We appreciate it.