Vance says White House feels like ‘Home Alone’ during Trump trip
Vice President JD Vance compared himself to Kevin McCallister, the character played by Macaulay Culkin in the “Home Alone” movie franchise, as he remains in the country during President Donald Trump’s trip to China.
“I walk into the White House, it’s very quiet, and no one’s there, and it takes me a second to realize exactly what’s going on,” Vance said in a news conference on Wednesday.
Vance pointed to Secret Service protocols as to why he did not accompany Trump, who briefly appeared in “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” to China. “I sometimes feel like Macaulay Culkin in ‘Home Alone,’ ” he said.
Trump arrived in China on Wednesday, shortly before 8 p.m. local time. A meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping is the centerpiece of the visit, where the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, Taiwan and U.S. business interests are expected to be discussed.
While Trump is away, Vance is to speak on the anti-fraud effort in Bangor, Maine on Thursday, according to the city’s NBC affiliate WABI-TV. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a potential rival to Vance as the leader of the MAGA movement post-Trump, is a part of the traveling party for the two-day trip.
The ‘Home Alone’ quip came at the start of a news conference on Wednesday announcing that the Trump administration will temporarily block new home health and hospice providers from enrolling in Medicare as a part of Vance’s anti-fraud task force.
The six-month moratorium will temporarily bar new providers in those categories from signing up for reimbursement from Medicare but will not impact providers already registered with Medicare, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The agency has paused enrollments in the past for specific counties when staff suspected fraud tied to those locations. In 2013, it barred new providers based in Florida’s Miami-Dade County and several counties in Illinois from enrolling. However, it is unusual to pause registrations nationwide.
CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz did not provide evidence to explain why the Trump administration believes it is necessary to bar new enrollments nationally.
Vance also announced that the federal government will defer $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursements to California, claiming the state “has not taken fraud very seriously.”
Fraud has been a favored cudgel wielded by the Trump administration against political adversaries. In announcing the fraud task force in March, Trump, without providing evidence, said fraud allegations were higher in Democratic-led states than in Republican-led states.
The administration invoked a daycare scandal in Minnesota and froze childcare payments to the state in the run-up to a large-scale immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis. Two people were killed by federal agents during the surge.