The Trump administration is now withholding more than $3 billion in Medicaid funds from California and Minnesota combined — and the staggering growth in those states' programs suggests the money wasn't going where taxpayers were told it was.

When Minnesota's autism program explodes from $3 million to nearly $400 million in six years, and California's personal care spending balloons at twice the national average, the question isn't whether something is wrong. The question is who got rich while Washington looked the other way — and why accountability only shows up after the cash is already gone.

CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz announced the latest move Tuesday from the White House: another $1.2 billion in Medicaid reimbursements deferred to California, on top of a separate $1.3 billion freeze from May targeting suspected fraud in hospice and in-home care programs. That puts $2.5 billion in dispute for California alone.

"California has been growing that program 24% in the last three years. That is twice the rate of every other state average in the country," Oz said. "Impossible for us to understand how that could be so we are taking major action in California."

Oz also questioned whether the state is paying for services that families would otherwise handle themselves: "Many of you would carry groceries upstairs for your mom for free, but in California, they will pay you a lot of money for it."

The New York Post noted that Oz has not publicly presented specific evidence of fraud in California's personal care program — the deferrals are driven by suspicious growth rates, not substantiated charges. The administration is instead trying to coax insiders into exposing wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Breitbart reported that Oz described a brazen scheme in Minnesota, where fraudsters bribed mothers roughly $1,500 per child to falsely claim their children were autistic — sticking kids with bogus diagnoses and crowding out families who actually need care.

"Fraud doesn't just steal our money. Fraud steals people's lives and it also steals our trust as a nation, and that is devastating to any country," Oz said.

CMS reviewed providers in Minnesota's 14 programs flagged as high-risk for fraud and found roughly a third could not be validated. "One in three shouldn't have been doing that job," Oz said. The agency has deferred about half a billion dollars in payments to Minnesota and is pursuing dozens of criminal investigations.

Prosecutor Joe Thompson has said Minnesota's high-risk programs cost $18 billion since 2018 — and more than half of that amount may be fraudulent. Independent journalist Nick Shirley, whose video of seemingly vacant Minneapolis daycare and autism centers drew federal scrutiny, said he uncovered around $100 million in fraud in a single day.

President Trump unveiled a $25 million Justice Department whistleblower initiative alongside the crackdown, offering $30,000 bounties for tips leading to fraud charges — plus an additional 1% commission on recovered funds. Trump named himself the program's final "arbitrator," promising to personally decide who gets paid. "I will be fair," he said.

The governors under fire are crying politics. Minnesota's Tim Walz called the federal effort a "campaign of retribution," accusing the administration of "weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states like Minnesota." California's Gavin Newsom has pushed back on separate federal allegations involving illegal voter registration tied to Medicaid programs.

But the numbers speak louder than the press releases. Minnesota's autism program grew 130-fold in six years. California's personal care program doubled the growth rate of every other state. These are bipartisan failures — Republican and Democratic administrations in Washington spent years signing the checks while the lobbying class and provider networks pocketed the proceeds. The Trump administration is now withholding funds, but the cash that already flowed out is unlikely to come back.

The open question: who among the providers, consultants, and middlemen who profited from this explosion will actually face charges — and who will walk away rich while taxpayers eat the loss.