President Trump's Department of Labor just dropped a number so staggering it makes your average government boondoggle look like a rounding error. Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling confirmed that $135 billion in COVID-era unemployment insurance was stolen through fraud during the Biden administration — one of the largest taxpayer thefts in American history.
One hundred and thirty-five billion dollars. That's roughly the entire GDP of Hungary just vanishing into the pockets of fraudsters while Biden's team was busy arguing about pronouns.
Sonderling laid out the jaw-dropping details in an interview with Benny Johnson. During COVID, $900 billion was distributed through unemployment insurance programs to help Americans get back on their feet after job losses. Noble enough goal. But under Biden's watch, the controls disappeared, the states turned a blind eye, and the money flowed like an open fire hydrant in July.
And where did it flow? Oh, you're going to love this. They were cutting checks to people sitting in prison — folks who obviously weren't looking for work unless you count smuggling contraband as a side hustle. They were paying children under 14. Three-year-olds. Seven-year-olds. Apparently toddlers were collecting unemployment benefits in Biden's America.
"135 billion is one of the largest taxpayer thefts in history," Sonderling said. He's being polite. It's not just theft — it's a fraud factory that ran for years with nobody at the wheel.
Sonderling credited President Trump for establishing the White House task force on fraud and appointing Vice President J.D. Vance to lead it. "They've put such tremendous efforts across all agencies to really root out fraud, particularly in government programs that gives out your hard-earned taxpayers dollars to individuals," Sonderling told Johnson.
Let that sink in. It took a new administration walking in the door and actually opening the books to discover that the previous crew had let $135 billion walk out the back. The Biden administration's approach to oversight was apparently the same as their approach to the border — just let it happen and hope nobody notices.
"How did that happen?" Sonderling asked rhetorically. "It was a lack of controls, it was states just turning a blind eye and letting this money flow." In other words, the system wasn't broken — it was deliberately left unguarded. When you make it easier to commit fraud than to fill out a legitimate unemployment claim, you're not running a safety net. You're running a casino where the house always loses.
The task force under Vance isn't just about pointing fingers, though that part is deeply satisfying. Sonderling said the Department of Labor is "taking some really extraordinary measures" to ensure this kind of wholesale looting never happens again. With the Vice President's task force, he said, "it's really making sure that never happens again."
We spent four years listening to Biden's people lecture us about "investing in America" and "building back better." Turns out the investment was in fraud and the only thing they built was a $135 billion hole in the taxpayer's pocket. Every DOGE-style audit this administration runs keeps pulling back the curtain on the same ugly picture — a government that was bleeding money because the people in charge either didn't care or were in on the joke.
Three-year-olds collecting unemployment. Prisoners cashing government checks. $135 billion gone. And they want us to trust them with the country again.