President Donald Trump gestures to reporters during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 20, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
By Nick Givas October 20, 2026 at 2:51pm
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the White House is establishing a payment system for whistleblowers who expose government fraud and corruption, in the hopes of incentivizing others to step forward.
“Today, I’m thrilled to announce the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“All Americans will now be able to go to Fraud.gov and report cases of corruption and theft of taxpayer dollars in their communities, all via a new website… If you turn somebody in, and let’s say you report and you find $1 billion, we are giving a commission to that person of 1 percent. It’s a lot of money.”
.@POTUS: Today, I’m thrilled to announce the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program. Americans will now be able to report cases of corruption and theft of taxpayer dollars in their communities via a new website — and they’ll be given a commission of one percent. https://t.co/c3Glzk52jI
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 20, 2026
“If a reporter turns somebody in, you have to get approval, perhaps from your wonderful newspaper,” the president continued.
“The kind of money that’s been stolen is trillions from this country, by crooked politicians who’ve made things and set things up — crooked attorney generals like we have in New York, like we have in Minnesota.”
The commander-in-chief also gave the first award of the initiative to conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley, who was in attendance alongside Vice President J.D. Vance in the Oval Office.
“Nick has been at the forefront of the battle to stop the horrible plague that’s happened within our country. There’s never been anything like it,” Trump continued.
“Nick used his popular YouTube channel to reveal that the Somali community… in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was stealing billions and billions of dollars, taxpayer money, through fraudulent childcare centers and other scams.”
He credited Shirley with helping effectuate the arrests of some of the 115 “fraudsters” since Trump resumed office, then accused Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison of being complicit in the fraud.
.@POTUS: “@nickshirleyy has been at the forefront of the battle to stop the horrible plague that has happened within our country… Nick used his popular YouTube channel to reveal that the Somali community in Minneapolis, MN, was stealing billions.” https://t.co/teb7vZz8fQ
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 20, 2026
“By the way, the governor is 100 percent guilty. He’s 100 percent guilty,” Trump proclaimed.
“He’s a fraud, he’s a thief, he’s a crook. And he’s getting away by just getting out of office. He’s getting away. He knew everything that was happening. The attorney general, that guy’s a total thief, and it’s a shame that they can just go and retire, because he knew what was happening. I’m sure he’s very happy, monetarily.”
The president added that “from day one of my administration, we’ve waged an unprecedented war on corruption and fraud.”
“We’ll not let our country be looted and plundered by thieves and pirates and foreign fraudsters and basically scum,” he continued.
Trump’s new program is part of a nationwide effort that he launched during his second term to crack down on federal fraud, which began when he established the Department of Government Efficiency.
In early 2026, Vance was also appointed to lead a new task force focused on tracking down fraud, waste, and abuse.
Back in April, the vice president announced that they’d already discovered at least $6 billion in potential fraud through government contracts.
The investigation found 895 contracts awarded to 392 businesses, totaling $6.3 billion “with $3 billion still left to be rewarded.”
Do you support the government’s reward program for whistleblowers?
News of Trump’s monetary reward program came less than two weeks after Vance spoke at a news conference about H-1B visa fraud.
He announced a major investigation into nine American universities that are using J-1 visas at exorbitantly high rates, potentially in an effort to undercut wages for graduate students.
“These universities are employing J-1 visas for federally funded grants at a rate of about 61 percent. The national average is 38 percent. So something weird is going on at these universities!” he declared.
“They’re using these visas way too much,” Vance added. “They’re using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers. And it simply has to stop.”
He specifically cited Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of California at Davis, Caltech, Arizona State, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Nick Givas has been a reporter for The Daily Caller, Fox News, and served as Managing Editor of the Newsroom at Project Veritas. He’s also hosted three different podcasts, served as a Congressional Communications Director, and had his work featured in The Federalist, Daily Signal, New York Post, and Real Clear Politics.
