SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Social media influencers recently caught out Minnesota and Ohio with allegations of benefits fraud. Those include unsubstantiated claims of fraud by people of Somali descent - claims that have been amplified by the Trump administration. Ohio's governor is speaking out about the accusations and rumors, as Ohio Public Radio's Sarah Donaldson reports.
SARAH DONALDSON, BYLINE: Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, saw the unproven accusations taking form over the holidays. There were social media videos outside child care centers and health care agencies from influencers and some elected officials, and a former secretary of state posted the case he called the tip of the iceberg of fraud - more than 40 day cares registered with the state on the same day by the same group. DeWine called a press conference to push back.
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MIKE DEWINE: That is not true. That is not true. It's not accurate.
DONALDSON: All it was, he said, was a computer update, resetting dates for centers that had already registered. And he said the state has already cut off funds to the group in question, which is fighting it in court now. He was doing this after a week of intensifying misinformation on social media and elsewhere. And 40 Republicans had asked the state to further audit the child care centers it funds.
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DEWINE: Fraud does occur, and if we think fraud doesn't occur, we're wrong.
DONALDSON: But DeWine also told people to let the state probe any potential fraud and not to go knocking on the doors of day cares to do their own investigations.
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DEWINE: There shouldn't be a shock when someone - you see something on social media and someone is going, I can't get into this place. No one will let me in. Well, hell, no. No one should let him in.
DONALDSON: Observers note DeWine's been in this spot before. During the COVID pandemic, he held daily press conferences. He pushed back in 2024, when President Trump accused Haitian immigrants in Ohio of eating pets.
CHRISTOPHER DEVINE: Part of what's going on is that Mike DeWine is defending his administration. The other part of it, of course, is it's actually in keeping with Mike DeWine's persona as a Republican official during the Trump era of trying to find some kind of balance.
DONALDSON: That's University of Dayton associate political science professor Christopher Devine. The governor has hit his term limit and will leave office in a year after five decades in politics as an old-school Republican.
DEVINE: It's not necessarily a moderate party that he wants, but one that is not so given to conspiracy theories.
DONALDSON: The rumors that people of Somali descent are fueling fraud are still rattling that community, where many live in Columbus.
ISMAIL MOHAMED: It's very scary, very difficult.
DONALDSON: That's Democratic state representative Ismail Mohamed, one of two Somali Americans serving in the Ohio legislature. Mohamed's daughter is in an area day care where there are strict rules that DeWine has discussed - photos and such, proving enrollment.
MOHAMED: The governor has been really helpful. His words have been very encouraging to the community. I certainly would hope that he would be willing to sit down with the community leaders as well.
DONALDSON: I asked DeWine about the concerns for Somali Americans.
DEWINE: Once someone is here, once someone is a U.S. citizen, they're a U.S. citizen. That's the - one of the glories of this country. You know, people can come here from other countries. If you look at the Somalian population, they came here decades ago, in some cases, and they started businesses. They've done many, many things. So we need to treat people as individuals.
DONALDSON: But some Republicans say they want to keep the spotlight on fraud. Here's Republican state representative Tex Fischer.
TEX FISCHER: I'm glad to see they're taking it seriously and getting out there and messaging about it. I still have concerns. I think they need to look very, very closely at this because these are - we're talking about billions of dollars of state funds between home health care and child care.
DONALDSON: And by the end of the week, this was Vice President Vance, who's from Ohio, speaking in the White House.
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JD VANCE: Those programs should go to American citizens, not be defrauded by Somali immigrants and others, making it hard for you to get the access to the resources you need.
DONALDSON: And he pointed to where.
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VANCE: We know that the fraud isn't just happening in Minneapolis. It's also happening in states like Ohio.
DONALDSON: By that time, the White House had already said it had frozen funding for some child care. DeWine says that could cause disruptions in Ohio within two months.
For NPR News, I'm Sarah Donaldson in Columbus. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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