Vice President JD Vance took an unusual approach to a serious subject during an announcement by the Trump administration’s fraud task force on Wednesday.
He poked fun at the name of a Black man he accused of taking part in a $4.4 million SNAP fraud scheme as he stood at the podium of the FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio.
“Now, there’s one guy in particular,” Vance started by setting up a video he wanted the room to see. “Do we have a TV up here? I know we were going to show the video.”
The clip showed the man flaunting his wealth while cursing at the camera. As it played, Vance could be heard commenting, “This guy’s a real winner.”
When the video ended, Vance turned to the man’s name, which he said he wanted to “get right.”
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“He goes by the name of ‘Shawty Dred,’” Vance said, before turning the pronunciation into a joke at his own staff’s expense.
“The best part about ‘Shawty Dred’ is that my amazing staff, worried that I would be unable to pronounce ‘Shawty Dred’, included a handy dandy phonetic spelling,” Vance told reporters. “But no, guys, I got it.”
Mercedes Reshard New, better known online as “Shawty Dred,” is an Atlanta social media personality who built an Instagram following of more than two million while showcasing private jets, luxury cars and stacks of cash.
Then he moved on to the allegations. “The simple fact is this is a man that we have connected to $4.4 million in fraud against the SNAP program,” Vance said, accusing him of “quite literally taking food from the mouths of children so that he can enrich himself.”
Federal prosecutors accuse the 39-year-old of financing his lavish lifestyle through a scheme that siphoned approximately $4 million in food assistance benefits from accounts created using stolen identities.
Prosecutors say New controlled more than 350 fraudulent Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program accounts between January 2020 and July 2026 and used his business, Shawty Dred LLC, to process some of the transactions.
Authorities arrested him on Oct. 13 after a federal grand jury indicted him on 46 counts of mail fraud, 15 counts of aggravated identity theft and one count each of SNAP fraud and illegal transactions with access devices. He remains presumed innocent.
Vance said the administration has prosecuted New along with other alleged fraudsters and plans to keep going.
“One of the most important lessons that we can send is that you shouldn’t be able to, and you can’t get rich off of fraud,” he said.
He then tied the case to the purpose of the program. “SNAP exists to help hungry children eat,” Vance said. “It does not exist to provide private jets to a guy like ‘Shawty Dred.’”
Here is the full transcript of Vance’s remarks after the video:
Vance: Okay. Uh, so that amazing young man, amazing citizen goes by the name of—and I want to make sure that I get this right—he goes by the name of “Shawty Dred.”
Now, to the press, the best part about “Shawty Dred” is that my amazing staff, worried that I would be unable to pronounce “Shawty Dred,” included a handy-dandy phonetic spelling of “Shawty Dred.” But no, guys, I got it.
The simple fact is this is a man that we have connected to $4.4 million in fraud against the SNAP program. A guy who is quite literally taking food from the mouths of children so that he can enrich himself.
And I’ll let Todd Blanche talk a little bit about this. Uh, but we have prosecuted this guy and prosecuted so many other fraudsters, and we’re going to keep on doing it because one of the most important lessons that we can send is that you shouldn’t be able to—and you can’t—get rich off of fraud.
SNAP exists to help hungry children eat. It does not exist to provide private jets to a guy like Shawty Dred.
And the fact that so many people feel like they can get rich off of our social safety net rather than ensuring that money goes to where it should go is evidence that, for too long in this country, we looked the other way.
Well, we’re done with that. We are done looking the other way when it comes to fraud.
