BOSTON — President Trump singled out Massachusetts as one of the most fraud-ridden states in the country during his State of the Union address Tuesday night — and Governor Maura Healey's response was to say he's just trying to distract people, as first reported by the Boston Herald.

Trump announced a "war on fraud" to be led by Vice President JD Vance, naming Massachusetts alongside California, Maine, and Minnesota. He referenced Minnesota's massive Somali community fraud case — estimated at $19 billion — then pointed to the Bay State.

"And California, Massachusetts, Maine, and many other states are even worse," Trump said. "This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation."

Healey dismissed the whole thing.

"This is all about the president and the Trump administration continuing to try to deflect and distract from the reality of what's happening," Healey said Thursday. "He just wants to announce things like that because it's really just a way to distract from what's really going on right now in this country, which is that people can't afford living."

The fraud is real — and a whistleblower tried to sound the alarm

Here's what makes the "distraction" defense hard to swallow: a Department of Transitional Assistance whistleblower has come forward alleging "rampant" fraud within Massachusetts' SNAP-EBT program — and a state agency that didn't want to hear about it.

The whistleblower told the Boston Herald that fraud cases surged dramatically starting in 2021, coinciding with the wave of illegal immigration under the Biden administration. But instead of cracking down, DTA upper management set what the whistleblower described as a "tone of normalcy" around the skyrocketing fraud — even as mid-level staffers repeatedly tried to raise the alarm.

The whistleblower provided internal documents, emails, and summaries of monthly and quarterly meetings where they and other staff tried to convince leadership to take the problem seriously.

Leadership, according to the whistleblower, wasn't interested.

Then Healey pushed out the DTA commissioner

When the Herald pressed Healey directly on the whistleblower's allegations, she pivoted to her résumé.

"As for fraud, I mean, I take that very seriously. I prosecuted and investigated fraud cases as attorney general. We continue to do that in our offices, through our agencies," she said. "I want to make sure that every single taxpayer dollar is protected."

But there's a detail that undercuts the "nothing to see here" posture: Healey recently pushed out the commissioner of DTA — the very agency at the center of the whistleblower's allegations.

Republican State Senator Ryan Fattman of Worcester wasn't letting that slide.

"I think she has a tendency to want to blame everybody else. I think that she needs to start looking in the mirror a little bit more," Fattman told the Herald. "She just apparently decided to push out the commissioner of DTA. Is that an admission of some sort of guilt? I'd say, yeah, there probably is an admission of some kind of culpability and a problem there. But time and time again, it's always someone else's fault."

$42 million in fraud — and counting

The numbers back up what the whistleblower has been saying. Federal and state investigators have uncovered tens of millions in SNAP fraud in Massachusetts:

• Earlier this month, the feds busted a $1 million SNAP fraud scheme at a Leominster restaurant called El Primo — run by a Dominican national, two illegal immigrants, and a green card holder who used stolen benefits to buy quality meats and resell them for profit
• In December, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced arrests of two Haitian nationals who ran a $7 million SNAP fraud operation out of a tiny retail store in Mattapan
• The state Auditor's Office has uncovered roughly $34 million in SNAP fraud across fiscal years 2023, 2024, and 2025

And just yesterday, four people were charged in a $7 million pandemic relief fraud scheme — also in Massachusetts.

The pattern

Healey's "distraction" defense is the same playbook Massachusetts Democrats have run all week. Rep. Ayanna Pressley boycotted the State of the Union entirely, refusing to "sit and listen to that man spew lies and hate." Sen. Ed Markey responded by demanding Trump be impeached, ICE abolished, and a Green New Deal passed — all nine items at once.

Boycotts. Wishlists. And now: "he's just trying to distract."

Meanwhile, a whistleblower says the fraud was rampant and leadership looked the other way. The commissioner got pushed out. And $42 million in taxpayer money is gone.

But sure — it's all a distraction.