Vice President JD Vance during a visit to Milwaukee called Dem Gov. Tony Evers’ refusal to turn over SNAP enrollment data “borderline criminal.”

Vance, who addressed reporters and guests at the Wisconsin National Guard’s 128th Air Refueling Wing Thursday, said the guv’s refusal to provide the enrollment data meant the federal government could not check if immigrants were accessing the program illegally. 

“If you are administering a program collecting billions and billions of dollars and if you don’t check if the people receiving those funds are actually entitled to it, you are perpetuating a scam,” Vance said. 

“The only plausible explanation for that is he cares more about protecting illegal aliens than he does the good citizens of Wisconsin,” he later added. 

Wisconsin is part of a coalition of states that have sued to block the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s demand to provide the agency with SNAP recipients’ sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers and immigration status. 

In April, Evers vetoed legislation that would have required the state to turn over food stamp recipients’ personal information to the federal government, citing data security concerns and the potentially unlawful nature of the administration’s demand. 

During Thursday’s rally in Milwaukee, U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, also called for Evers to turn over the food stamp rolls, saying fraudsters were “literally taking the food out of the mouths of hungry babies.’’ Meanwhile, lawmakers called for an audit of the state’s food stamp rolls. 

Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback did not address the vice president’s remarks but attacked presumptive GOP gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany for his own calls to audit fraud.

“Newsflash: ‘all of state government’ is already ‘audited’ by the Legislative Audit Bureau as overseen by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which you would think someone who wants to run state government should already know,” Cudaback wrote on X. 

Vance, who was in Milwaukee to discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to combat healthcare fraud, sought throughout his remarks to paint Dems as the “pro-fraud party.”

At one point, he displayed a picture of Markita Barnes, a Milwaukee prenatal care provider convicted last year of pocketing $2.3 million in Medicaid funds, and said congressional Dems “fought” to give money to Barnes. 

He also exhorted attendees to reelect congressional Republicans and to vote for GOP 7th CD candidate Michael Alfonso, who is running in a five-way primary. Vance also urged support for Tiffany in the governor’s race. 

Ahead of Vance’s visit, Wisconsin Dems criticized the Trump administration and GOP lawmakers like Tiffany and U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, for cutting funding for Medicaid and SNAP via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 

“JD Vance may be coming to Milwaukee today, but he’s not coming to bring solutions, he’s bringing rhetoric, he’s coming to celebrate and congratulate two members of Congress who have been their rubber stamps and their partners while they do this detrimental work,” said state Rep. Kalan Haywood, D-Milwaukee.

Vance also said Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s letter slamming the federal probe into the 2020 presidential election “was a little bit of ‘he doth protest too much.’”

Johnson, a Democrat, questioned in a letter this week why federal agents had been sent to interview Milwaukee election officials, writing he “knew of no justification for this activity.” 

Johnson also invited Vance to see the city’s election operation and talk with city election officials firsthand.

“When I hear a guy protesting out of nowhere, ‘I did not do any election fraud, I did not do any election fraud,’ it makes me wonder why that guy is protesting so aggressively,” Vance said, comparing it to his 6-year-old son telling him he hadn’t stolen a cookie. 

Vance said he “didn’t have time to meet” with Johnson but that he was “welcome to come to Washington.”

He also said he would “stop talking about election fraud” if Democrats passed the SAVE America Act, stalled legislation that would impose new restrictions on voting and expand the federal government’s authority over elections.

U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, also advocated for the act’s passage ahead of the VP’s remarks. 

Johnson in a statement criticized Vance for offering “glib brush-offs” to his letter. 

“I’ll ask again, what evidence is there of voter fraud in Milwaukee? Without any rational basis, why are FBI agents knocking on doors, intimidating current and former election officials? With no credible evidence of voter fraud, why is President Trump’s Administration undermining America’s faith in elections?” Johnson said.

He added he would be visiting Washington in September and looked forward to meeting with the VP then.