Vance's Long Island appearance to focus on 'crime and fraud'

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s ongoing "crackdown on crime and fraud" will be the focus of a ticket-only event headlined by Vice President JD Vance Wednesday morning in Bethpage, the White House said Tuesday.

The Justice Department also announced that it had filed a lawsuit against Gov. Kathy Hochul's administration claiming a "sham" process in awarding a $10 billion Medicaid home healthcare contract.

The lawsuit names state Health Commissioner James McDonald, state Medicaid Director Amir Bassiri and a Georgia company that has managed New York’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistant Program since 2025.

The lawsuit alleges that the Health Department awarded the company, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), the lucrative contract in "a backroom deal." Then, despite allegedly learning of PPL’s intent to violate the contract terms, the lawsuit accuses the state of having "failed to take action ... resulting in a fraud scheme that remains unchecked to this day."

"New York’s backroom deal with PPL has cost taxpayers millions of dollars and cast countless Medicaid patients to the curb," Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald for the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said in a statement.

Hochul's administration said the Trump administration was using the levers of government to deliver political attacks.

"This is just another sad attempt by the Trump administration to weaponize the justice system to attack political opponents in an election year," the administration said in a statement.

"New York’s decision to move to a single fiscal intermediary has already saved taxpayers more than a billion dollars while deterring fraud, waste and abuse," the state said. "As many courts have already held, the transition to a single fiscal intermediary was lawful and appropriate. We are confident the facts are on our side."

White House task force

Vance is chair of a White House task force that since March has led the Trump administration’s "war on fraud." He has up to this point been particularly critical of leaders in some blue states like California and Minnesota for allegedly enabling fraud.

His event Wednesday starts at 11 a.m. at Gold Coast Studios and is being described to invitees as an official messaging appearance, and non-political.

Jay Jacobs, who is chairman of both the state and Nassau County Democratic committees, suggested Tuesday that there are clear political overtones to the event, beyond claims of fraud and waste. He said they include GOP efforts to use the event to bolster the gubernatorial candidacy of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is running against Hochul.

A Blakeman spokesman had no immediate response.

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) did not learn the event was occurring within his district until after the administration announced the process for obtaining tickets. A spokesman said Tuesday he will not be attending.

One of the Republicans running in the district, Gregory Hach of Oyster Bay, questioned the timing of the visit — just six days before New York’s congressional primaries. Trump’s choice to take on Suozzi is Hach's opponent — former Assemb. Michael LiPetri of Farmingdale.

"Front-runners don’t need a vice president flown in during early voting; rescue missions do, and that’s exactly what the LiPetri campaign has become — a rescue mission," jabbed the campaign for Hach.

There was no immediate response from the LiPetri camp, including whether he planned to attend.

A spokesman for Nassau County’s Republican chairman, Joseph Cairo, did not respond to the claims the event carries political aims.

Promotional tour

Vance’s Nassau County appearance comes as the vice president is making the rounds in a promotional tour for a new book, which had him appearing Tuesday in Manhattan on the ABC daytime talk show "The View." He has also been trying to raise his profile as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, said Republicans are trying to rally suburban voters.

"It’s clear that the administration and the party are in trouble with suburban swing voters, the ones who cycle after cycle, determine who controls the keys to the White House and the gavels in Congress — the national agenda," Levy said.

Levy said the White House — and even Vance for his own brand — may see this event as a way to reconnect with Nassau County voters who are shrinking away from them over the economy and the war — and even immigration, which had been a strong suit.

"And in looking for issues that might do that, they see waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars as something that might resonate with hard-pressed suburban homeowners," he said.