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California Officials Accuse Trump Admin of 'Political Retribution' as Vance Suspends Medicaid Payments
"Withholding reimbursements only further hurts patients, strains providers, and drives up costs," said one Democratic congresswoman. "We will fight this with everything we’ve got."
May 14, 2026
"Political retribution, plain and simple," was how US Sen. Alex Padilla described an announcement by Vice President JD Vance late Wednesday regarding the White House's decision to withhold $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursement payments to California.
Vance and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, claimed the state's Medicaid records have generated "red flags" and demanded officials clarify $630 million in billing, $500 million that's been spent on home health services, and $200 million in what Oz called "questionable expenditures," which he claimed had been used to provide coverage for undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for Medicaid.
The announcement came a month after Vance's federal anti-fraud task force suspended the licenses of nearly 450 hospice care facilities and 23 home health agencies in the Los Angeles area, accusing them of fraud.
Vance also warned that all 50 states could soon see federal funding for their Medicaid Fraud Control Units frozen if they fail to "aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud."
"We can turn off other resources within their state Medicaid programs as well," said the vice president.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has frequently sparred with the Trump administration, said Vance and Oz were "attacking programs that keep seniors and people with disabilities OUT of nursing homes," which are far more expensive to run than home healthcare agencies.
Newsom said the growth of the state's In-Home Supportive Services program has saved taxpayers "$107,000 per person" by reducing reliance on nursing homes.
"MAGA hates in-home support programs—which help people stay out of costly institutional settings like nursing homes and get the care they deserve, typically from loved ones," said Newsom.
Newsom also said the Trump administration had informed state officials that the deadline to review California's Medicaid records "before deciding whether to defer funding" would be later in the month.
Democratic members of Congress warned that their constituents rely heavily on Medicaid, with seven out of 10 of the congressional districts with the highest Medicaid enrollment located in California.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said that 56% of her constituents rely on "this lifesaving program," and many have already been harmed by the Republican Party's slashing of Medicaid funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.
"Withholding reimbursements only further hurts patients, strains providers, and drives up costs," said Kamlager-Dove. "We will fight this with everything we’ve got."
Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) said more than 120,000 people in his district depend on the federal healthcare program for low-income households and people with disabilities.
"This administration needs to stop playing politics with people’s health and lives," said Panetta. "When people commit fraud, they should be punished accordingly. However, this administration continues to punish California for political purposes, including penalizing innocent people by taking their healthcare away."
State Attorney General Rob Bonta noted that California has "not hesitated to challenge unlawful actions by the Trump administration," and suggested the state could file a legal challenge against the withholding of Medicaid funds.
He also accused the administration of targeting the heavily Democratic state "for political reasons."
The anti-fraud task force led by Vance has so far exclusively focused on rooting out alleged fraud in federal programs in blue states. The White House suspended $259 million in federal payments to Minnesota earlier this year after a scandal regarding the state's social services system.
"The Trump administration is attacking California over claims that they can't back up," said Padilla. "Let's be real, this isn't about fraud—it's about punishing a state that didn't vote for" President Donald Trump.
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The Farm Bill’s 'Save Our Bacon' Provision Attacks State's Rights and Voters
Democrats and Republicans who claim to respect states’ rights should reject this federal power grab and defend the voters, farmers, and small businesses who have already moved forward.
May 13, 2026
Congress has a choice to make: Protect democracy and states’ rights, or hand a blank check to Big Pork lobbyists who refuse to accept that voters, family farmers, and the marketplace have already moved on.
Buried in the House-passed Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (Farm Bill) is a provision known as the “Save Our Bacon Act,” a slickly named attempt to wipe out state farm animal welfare laws like California’s Proposition 12. The House passed the farm bill on April 30 by a vote of 224-200, after the Rules Committee blocked a bipartisan amendment that had the votes to pass on the floor that would have stripped the Save Our Bacon language from the bill.
Now the fight moves to the Senate. And every Democrat and Republican who claims to respect states’ rights should be on notice: This provision is not about saving bacon. It is about overriding voters, punishing family farmers who adapted, and using federal power to erase state laws that powerful corporate interests dislike.
Proposition 12 was passed by nearly 63% of California voters in 2018. At its core, the law set a basic standard for certain animal products sold in California, including pork: A mother pig should have enough space to stand up, turn around, and extend her limbs. That is not radical. It is the bare minimum.
The message should be simple: Respect the voters, respect the farmers, respect the courts, and keep this attack on states’ rights out of the Farm Bill.
The pork lobby sued anyway, arguing that California had no right to decide what products could be sold within its own borders. They took that argument all the way to the US Supreme Court—and lost, even before a conservative court. In 2023, the court upheld Prop 12.
That should have been the end of it.
Instead, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and its allies went to Congress and asked lawmakers to do what the courts would not: nullify the will of voters through federal legislation. The Farm Bill is their latest vehicle to pass the Save Our Bacon Act.
Supporters dress this up as a defense of interstate commerce. But let’s be honest about what it really is: a federal override of state decision-making.
That should alarm conservatives who believe Washington should not dictate every policy choice from the top down. It should alarm progressives who believe voters have the right to pass laws protecting animals, consumers, workers, and communities. And it should alarm anyone who thinks Congress should be solving actual problems in the farm bill—not sneaking in special favors for a trade group that lost in court, lost at the ballot box, and is now trying to win through backroom legislative maneuvering.
The irony is that Prop 12 has not caused the collapse its opponents predicted. Pork has remained on California shelves. Major producers have adapted. Nearly all major food companies now offer Prop 12-compliant pork. Many farmers invested in compliant systems and rely on the market that Prop 12 created.
In fact, some of the loudest claims against Prop 12 have aged terribly. The NPPC’s own vice president testified before Congress while describing himself as a fourth-generation hog farmer who produces Prop 12-compliant pork—then argued against the very law he already follows. That contradiction says everything. Compliance is possible. The industry knows it. The marketplace has shown it.
The people who stand to lose from the Save Our Bacon Act are not the multinational corporations that have already adjusted. They are the family farmers who spent money to meet higher standards, the small and mid-sized producers who gained access to premium markets, and the voters whose laws would be wiped away because a lobby did not like the outcome.
This is why opposition to the provision has not fallen neatly along party lines. A bipartisan group led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, sought to remove the language from the Farm Bill, joined by Republicans and Democrats including Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), David Valadao (R-Calif.), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Mike Lawler, (R-NY), and Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), according to industry reporting.
That bipartisan resistance matters. It shows this is not a left-versus-right issue. It is a question of whether Congress will respect state authority or gut it when a powerful industry lobby complains loudly enough.
For Democrats, the choice should be easy. Prop 12 reflects humane treatment, consumer transparency, and democratic accountability. It was passed by voters and upheld by the courts. A farm bill should not become a vehicle for rolling back animal welfare progress and silencing state-level reform.
For Republicans, the choice should be just as easy—at least for those who mean what they say about states’ rights. If California voters cannot decide that pork sold in California must meet basic animal welfare and food safety standards, then what exactly does “states’ rights” mean? Does it only apply when a state passes laws that corporate lobbyists like?
The Save Our Bacon Act is also a warning shot far beyond animal welfare. If Congress can erase state laws protecting farm animals because they affect interstate commerce, what stops future Congresses from targeting state laws on food safety, environmental protection, public health, labeling, or consumer standards? Opponents have warned that this kind of language could threaten hundreds of state agricultural laws and undermine state and local authority well beyond Prop 12.
That is why lawmakers should strip this language from any final farm bill.
The farm bill should support farmers, strengthen food systems, expand nutrition access, invest in conservation, and build resilience. It should not be hijacked by a narrow industry faction trying to relitigate a Supreme Court loss. And it certainly should not punish the farmers and companies that did the right thing by adapting to higher standards.
Animal welfare progress is real. Across the food system, companies, producers, and consumers are moving toward more humane practices. Cage-free eggs now make up a major and growing share of the market. In pork production, many supply chains have reduced or eliminated gestation stalls. The trend is clear: Extreme confinement is becoming harder to defend and easier to replace.
The progress did not happen by accident. It happened because voters demanded it, farmers built it, companies responded to it, and advocates kept pushing. The Save Our Bacon Act would turn back the clock—not because the system failed, but because it succeeded.
Congress should not reward obstruction. It should not let Big Pork use the farm bill to override voters. And it should not allow a fake “states’ rights” argument to become a federal power grab against the states that actually exercised their rights.
Democrats and Republicans who genuinely believe in democracy, federalism, and fair markets should stand together and reject the Farm Bill if it includes the Save Our Bacon Act language.
The message should be simple: Respect the voters, respect the farmers, respect the courts, and keep this attack on states’ rights out of the Farm Bill. Call your US senators today and tell them to oppose Big Pork’s attack on democracy and oppose any Farm Bill version with the "Save Our Bacon" language included.
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California's Tom Steyer Proposes Jobs Guarantee for Workers Displaced by AI
"Most politicians still fail to recognize or downplay the threat of AI to workers, at the behest of Silicon Valley," said one veteran labor organizer.
May 08, 2026
In a first for a statewide candidate, California gubernatorial contender Tom Steyer on Friday proposed the creation of a wealth fund that would be paid into by artificial intelligence companies, with the money being used to fund jobs in key sectors of the economy.
The billionaire hedge fund founder-turned-environmental advocate, who has come out in support of a proposed tax on billioionaires' wealth and a single-payer healthcare system for the state and has described himself as a "class traitor," told Wired about his proposal to use a "token tax" to fund what he called the Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Big Tech companies would be taxed “a fraction of a cent for every unit of data processed” for AI uses, and some of the money directed to the fund through the taxation plan would be earmarked for jobs for people who lost employment due to the expansion of AI.
Jobs in healthcare, housing construction, and modernizing the state's energy infrastructure would be prioritized in the fund.
Steyer told Wired the plan would make California "the first major economy in the world" to guarantee jobs to people who have been displaced by AI.
“People all over this state are terrified that AI is going to hollow out this whole economy and they’re going to lose their jobs. Young people are worried they’ll never get a job,” Steyer told Wired. “We believe this can be an amazing transformational technology in many ways, but we’re not in the business of leaving people in California behind.”
The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas released a report Thursday showing that for the second straight month, AI was the leading reason companies cited for laying off workers. AI-related job cuts accounted for 26% of the 88,387 layoffs the firm recorded, with 21,490 people losing their jobs due to AI.
“Technology companies continue to announce large-scale cuts and are leading all industries in layoff announcements. They are also often citing AI spend and innovation. Regardless of whether individual jobs are being replaced by AI, the money for those roles is,” said Andy Challenger, chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray, and Christmas.
Last October, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released an analysis showing that AI and automation could eliminate nearly 100 million jobs in a decade—yet President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are aggressively pushing to stop states from regulating the industry.
Trump signed an executive order late last year calling on the Department of Justice to create an AI Litigation Task Force, which would target laws and proposals to require studies on the impact of AI on jobs, protect people from AI companion chatbots, and regulate the technology in other ways.
“Not regulating AI doesn’t seem remotely reasonable,” Steyer said Friday.
At a debate earlier this week, Steyer said AI cannot be allowed to "create 12 trillionaires and millions of people who lose their jobs."
"The number-one thing that we have to do is make sure AI is a tool for workers and not a replacement of workers," he said. "And we absolutely need to own part of it."
We can't let AI create 12 trillionaires and millions of people who lose their jobs. The people of California need to share in the wealth AI creates. pic.twitter.com/ts2Ru1J5IX
— Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) May 6, 2026
Charles Idelson, former communications director for National Nurses United, applauded Steyer for "addressing a growing danger for California's working class."
"Most politicians still fail to recognize or downplay the threat of AI to workers, at the behest of Silicon Valley," said Idelson.
Steyer said in a memo that in addition to protecting Californians from job loss, the fund created by the token tax would "strengthen the foundation of the state’s economy, invest in our communities, and create beautiful, vibrant public spaces."
“To support these efforts," said the campaign, "Tom will also invest heavily in training and apprenticeship programs across the state.”
Steyer's plan for AI also includes an expansion of unemployment insurance and the creation of the AI Worker Protection Administration that would adopt new rules to protect workers' rights as AI continues to develop.
Devin Murphy, director for digital mobilization for Steyer's campaign, said the state faces a "defining question" after its tech industry helped build the AI economy: "Who benefits from it?"
"Tom Steyer is putting forward one of the first serious plans to ensure AI strengthens the middle class," said Murphy, "instead of hollowing it out."
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