Systemic Changes for Medicaid Integrity

Why aren' we on the air, by the way What was that? Why when are we here Why aren't we? Are we we're still we're waiting. we're wait for Kns. I mean Kns is like I don't know, you smoking cigtar? I don't know, waiting for Why are you asking Clavven? if you had not brought Kol to a dinner party fifteen years ago, none of this would have been a problem It is my fault. just is such a good presentation. one hundred percent fault. So everything Everything winds up being my fault. It's funny, whatever happens, it all comes back to me Yeah, that's tr Fine, Let's just do that. I don't think's an improvement. I think yeah, I think it raises the level of the conversation. Okay, fine Okay so what are we gonna talk about? We just start talking about pine cones or what? did you know what I'm sorry.' I hate admit this. I don't know what the pine cone thing is about. Oh Okay, I'm gonna have Bya explain this to you so that I don't get in HR trouble. Bya explain the pine cone thing to Clayvan because I prefer not to be sued I don't know I don't wantan to get sued, but all right. And also the reason I bring this up is because we are we actually recording already? And we're all recording all of this, but we'll cut out anything that is doesnt. Yeah, whichich is to say three quarters of the show will be cut out. No no. I want to give Laura Lumomer credit because I feel like she often has great reporting and she never gets credited for it. But she will go into the gutter and get the people and find the people. And like last night was really Laura Lumomer's night. And what she did was she found a woman who claims to have had an affair with Thomas Massey Tw months after his wife died And the things that she claimed he asked her to do, they're perverse. I will not repeat them. but in Part of her what she sort of what Laura got out of her was that Massey allegedly also had an affair with Lauren Bobert and in text messages would refer to genitals, specifically his male member as his pine cone And I tr truly want to know I know. I know. It's horrific. But I truly want to know. I'm sure a lot of us feel that like the downfall of Thomas Massey was sort of of a piece with the downfall of the podcast steread and the influencers with no influence. And these people who have turned rapidly anti Semitic on the right who pretend to have influence There's that. there's the fact that, you know, he really Dond Trump' sitting right there. Mager To me, I really do w to know like did Pine Cone Gate make a difference to the people of Kentucky? I'm going to go and know that the Pinecone Gate really didn't make a difference. If it had have been Cactus Gate That would have been a completely different thing. I mean I'm just honestly, like what other parts of the natural world would be worse to label your member then a pine really you're running into like see an enemy gate. likeike I don't I don't know cororal gate. like what are we talking here? And he was and apparently he was texting with women using this this name, right? I mean, like I think that's where the text came from is in a text with a woman He was referring allegedly to his member as a pine cone. And Iattering. I know I am a little bit late here, but I do want to tell the audience, we have the pine cone coming on actually later in the show. So be sure to stay tuned because this is friendriendly by. Friendies friend That's pornographic. Is that Yeahah well, that's for behind the paywall. Obviously, we, know, you got to subscribe for that. You don't get to put the on to YouTube The. Can I want to ask a question about this tholough, because the only part of this I actually heard and maybe this is selective deafness on my part, but the only part of this I heard was the part they had an affair with a woman two months after his wife died, which I didn't think was so bad. I mean what was she gonna to do? comeome back? I mean, she died, he mo down. Wh It is interesting, you know, like on all of the dirt that they were digging up on NAassy right before the election. Yeah, it is interesting that look, I mean a lot of it was like raised a lot of eyebrows and probably didn't represent good judgment if it was true. But yeah, what right, you're right, Drew. It wasn't they didn't allege that he cheated on his wife. They didn't allege that kind of impropriety. So, you know, it was kind of typical political stuff. someome of it was kind of weird, like the Pine cones or whatever. But all of it together I was confident. I'd be curious to know what you all were thinking yesterday. I predicted Masy was going to go down. I didn't know it was going to be a nine point swing, but I predicted he was going to go down And the reason why it wasn't just because of the big beautiful bill, it wasn't just because of the pro Israel donors, It wasn't just because of this that or the other thing. It was because he was acting like a guy who was about to lose is correct. Right yeah. All right, thanks No no, this is totally right. Okay first of all, like you don't run a campaign in northern Kentucky in which your chief issue is Israel and the Jews. That's the dumbest thing you can do. becausecause if you think that the voters in Northern Kentucky are thinking about that, you're out of your mind. His district has seven hundred eighty thousand people and yet it's less than five hundred Jews. And so if you actually want to know what happened in that election cycle, it's very easy. Watch the local TV ads. The local TV ads were Massey trying to hump Trump's leg And then the rest of the campaign was Trump saying G off my leg That was the entire campaign. The entire campaign was saying it was Ed Galrine being like, dude. Trump doesn't like you, and you're not going to make it happen. You're trying too hard. And Masy being like, no, no, we're best friends. We're super best friends Trump' tweeting I don't even like him. I want him gone. He's the worst. And soire We can't paper over the fact. What's kind of funny with Massey is he had a super pro Israel billionaire donor who was backing him. but theres no there's no doubt pro Israel donors and, you know sort of commentators for sure. But that's because he was vulnerable. Yes because he was vulnerable. And the other the other thing is, though, because a lot of the massy supporters are basically trying to peg the whole thing on Jews for the reason he went down. But within the context Brad Raffenssberger going down, Bill Cassidy going down, the five state legislators in Indiana going down. Within that context, I think you got to say, the reason he went down, look, even if the Israel donors played a role in the race, the reason he went down is the same reason all those other guys went down. and it's because they opposed Trump and Trump owns the party That's hundredcentbertarans justnt Liberarians are inherently annoying though, because they're constantly saying, I'm standing on principle. I'm not going to play politics. And I keep thinking, you're a politician. It like It's like Aaron Judge saying I'm not going to play baseball, you know? It It doesn't make any sense. You know, The guy would not compromise over anything. know they're all the same. I mean Rand Paul who I kind of likeed He is like this too, though, they will not play the game. Part of which is getting the president's agenda done You know? And so might just make Trump was like, you know, to be gone, you know Yeah, and Michael T. your point The reason you knew he was going to lose is because he started running campaign where it was like, what if I have over podcast Nazis to my house And I'm not joking. There was literally people wearing sweatshirts that said American Reicha on them. Really? It wasn't really trying to That was real. That was real. And so like that is that is not the move of a person who thinks he is long for the Congress. That is a person who is trying to steer into the dollars and cents of podcast and makeaking a future for himself. And by the way, I will point out, the strange respect he is likely to receive For this campaign from MSNBC and from New York Times and from all of these clowns is demonstrative of the fact that if you want to be accepted in left wing world, what you really should do is steer into the anti Israel anti Semitism stuff. It is not about resistance to Trump. You know who is more resistant to Trump than Thomas Massey, a guy named Bill Cassidy, who voted for his actual impeachment in twenty twenty one You think Bill Cassidy is going to be on MS now anytime soon as a resistance hero? There's no way in hell, but Masseywell, and so will MTG and so will Joe Kent and so will the rest of these clowns. And that is because again, the anti Semitism of the left is now baked into the cake. I mean, that is a very real thing from Graham Platinner up in Maine to this insane House Democrat down in Texas who is literally calling for me to go to an internment camp, like to be sent to an B and I have to sent to an internment.le.ly you may too. Yeah Drew, you you may be there too, Drew. It depends on her classification. said. I don't know if your conversion was effective. So it so you know, it all depends. But you, what that says is That Masy at a certain point here, I think when Trump came out against him, realized that he was going down. and he was like, well, I'm going to launch a new movement that is sort of, you know, the horseshoe right and the woke left allogether and we will be best friends. And I think that that's really what the campaign became. as far as the Jewish American money that came in. and it was not Israeli money, that's illegal. It was Jewish American money that came in to that race via APC and via other super packs Well, yeah, the guy's wildly anti Israel. and it turns out that a lot of donors would like to see him go because he opposose things that they like. That's what happens in every race. But you'll notice that it was not until Trump actually started the process of kicking his ass out of Congress that that happened because he won over seventy five percent of the primary vote in twenty twenty, twenty twenty two, and twenty twenty four. And it was only when he went up against Trump That things started to get really squirrellly for him. Yeah, no, this is the key, Ben. I think because I don't mean to paper over it or gaslight. likeike obviously, there were a lot of pro Israel donors who didn't like Massey. And you know, Massey kind of earned their irire in many ways in a lot of his comments. But first of all, he's not the only congressman who voted against funding for Israel. And like the hypothetical I think of here is Had Masse voted for the big beautiful bill? H NAassy gone along with the White House and Not like Israel voted against funding Israel, even made comments that were anti Israel. If that were the case, I think he would still have his seat. In other words, it's not that the pro Israel donors would like him or anything like that, but it's that Trump was this sort of catacon figure. And it was when Trump said, Hey buddy, you're out. That was when all of the other political machinations really started to play out To be f, Matthew doesnn't send anybody money But didn't Trump back his opponent Masy has won before against a Trump backed opponent. I think I see as exactly the opposite as Michael Knowles I think Americans, especially young people on the right, people on the right, people on the left are very comfortable criticizing Israel right now But there is a line in the sand when it becomes obvious that it's not just Israel you have a problem with, which, you know, Rand Paul doesn't, you know want to fund Israel. I don't ever feel like he's being anti Semitic. There's a line where you cross that it's not just Jews and it's not just pro Israel people The American people have very little tolerance for anti Semitism. And when you start saying that the Republican Jewish cooalition Republican Jews are somehow undermining American interests because they're, you know, trying to whip up support against you That reads, I think, to average Americans as really anti Semitic. And I think it's really off putting. Like I think the fact that he, you, the Trump piece obviously is a really big deal, but he won before against a Trump back candidate. I really think it was the tonal shift, the way that he talked about Israel, it stopped being the same as the way he talked about Ukraine. It stopped sounding like it was a principple opposition to funding and to war and started sounding like he was attacking American Jews. And I feel like average Americans They're not so into Israel right now, but they are very protective of their Jewish neighbors. And I think that that just came off as so gross. Like his opening to his commment to his concession speech where he said, I had to go find my opponent's phone number and he's Tel Aviv somewherely have the clip. cl I have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede and it took a while to find Ed Galrine in Tel Aviv I didn't get to call through though. I have called and conceded the race. We've been honorable the whole time and we're going stay that way. He's been her for a long time. The whole time except for' been F. I wish that I wish you Amer kids the ck I wish you were right Bacha, but I don't think that's true.'t I mean, I think that people In America, people tend to be tolerant. they tend to be fairly accepting as long as you leave them alone. But I don't think that that's what brought him down. I think I mean, Trump stomped on the guy. It was a curb stomping. and it was it was kind of unfair. I mean, I don't think Masy has actually been that bad if you just consider him as a series of votes. I don't think he's been that bad. just Trump way. Yeah no Yeah, in a lot ways he's fine. I mean, I just think he got up Trump's nose. peopleeople are just really sick. I think of a Congress that cannot accomplish anything. And I think that I think there's something Trump's way, it's gonna be ye I think there's something else there with me ask you too. One is, yes, he is the most obstructionist congressman on the right. I mean, there's no question. He was a consistent no vote for every major agenda item that Trump was pushing, which pissed Trump off. But there is something else that we're ignoring here, which is that Masseew decided to make it his chief goal in life to drag Trump through the mud with a bunch of bullshit about Jeffrey Epstein.? He and Ro Con decided that they were going to run an op going after Trump, right? He was going to reach across the aisle and suggest that Trump was covering for a child sex trafficking rank And he he was on video, I mean, naming people in the files who were guilty of nothing, which they then later had to admit. And he decided he was going to ramp this up. So I think that actually the anti Semitism, as always is the symptom, not the cause. I think that he started thinking in very conspiratorial ways about American politics and grievance based ways about American politics. He started attributing that to weird, clickish conspiracies like the quote unquote Esteam class and all this stuff. Trump read that. he's like list It's one thing for you to vote against me sometimes. It's another thing for you to vote against me always. It's another thing for you to go on MS now and talk about how I'm covering up child sex trafficking. The answer here is no. And it just turns out that the crossover between believing all of those former things and also believing that the Jews are deciding on your fate at their Friday night dinners, the crossover there tends to be almost one hundred percent. Yeah you're a conspiratorial thinker who who does grievance based politics and also opposes every element of Trump's agenda The chanceces that you are going to, you know Wandering around outside in the rain, ranting about the Udon is pretty high. Yeah, no, you know, there was this clip that was going around. It was one of the last real knocks on Massy you know, eleventh hour. And it was him being interviewed by a hostile journalists saying, Hey, why do you post Trump? and why have you voted against the GOP on these crucial votes, whatever. And he said, Hey, hey, hey, I vote I vote with the Republicans ninety one percent of the time, but nine percent of the time I don't vote for them because they're covering up for pedophiles And I thought, okay, hold on, wait, that doesn't even make a coherent political position. So you agree with the pedos and the peto protectors ninety one percent of the time. I don't want to agree with them ony percent of the time. And so you know what he represented to me, if you kind of zoom out from these individual issues or the individual donors or whatever, is he had two problems going for him. He he voted seventy seven, a little over seventy seven percent of the time with the GOP in Congress, this term which is way below the median GOP congressman who voted ninety five percent of the time This was also down from Massey last term, who was voting ninety one percent of the time GOP, which itself was down from the previous term when he voted ninety five percent of the time GOP. So you can say, look, I hate the GOP. I'm glad he bucked the party, I like that he's independent, whatever, but that's not going to win you support with the party. And then the other issue was, and this gets to your point, Ben You know, when you're paling around with Roanna, one of these unctuous left wing figures who's just constantly taking shots at the right, whenre when you're calling your colleagues and the people who are supposed to be on your team, pedophiles essentially. I mean, what you're expressing is not just independence from the party, you're expressing a kind of contempt for the party and a contempt for the leader of the party. And it just at that point, the vice Pident put it very well. He said, look I've gotten along with Thomas in the past. we've agreed on a lot of things, but you know, you're going if you're going to go against the party in such a brutal way, you can't expect the party to back you. I get I get kind of back r with possible theuries sorry, go ahead bit. No I think that kind of backs what Ben was saying that the Jewish issue is really part and parcel of this horseshoe where right meets left. I mean, I cannot see the difference between most of the people who were spouting this stuff. I can't see the political difference. They're all seem to be on the same side and the worst of the kind of hatred and the Jew hatred that comes out is in the New York Times, you know, which has always kind of been in that position. So I do think that there is this way that this guy just drifted out of the mainstream of the right, which actually doesn't adhere to a lot of that st. Well You know what I like to do is drift out of consciousness so that I can go take a nice sleep on my helelix match. I like hold on a second b. I had a great hold on. hold. Hold on. Transition. I'm going to do it again You know what I like to do is drift off to sleep on my Helix mattress. What you gott to do right now is go to helelixleep dot com slash friendly fire, which it will feel a lot less clunky than my transition did. We love our sponsors, Helix. they let you sleep really, really well. Helix has a sleep quiz that uses your preferred sleep position, firmness and other factors to match you with the right mattress for you, which is a far more rational system than wandering around a showroom and laying on random beds Helx is an award winning mattress brand reviewed by outlets like Forbes and Wired. Gentlemen and maybe Batia you too. I'm not sure. I know you Drew and Ben, you guys Lo your helelix mattress We do I get to stay awake on it so I know it's comfortable because I never sleep. So I just lie there going, wow, what a comfortable mattress. I wish I could sleep sometime. Now they ship your door in the U.S. with free shipping, one hundred twenty ninth sleep trial, limited lifetime warranty, meaning you can test it risk free and send it back if it is not right for you. I absolutely love it. I've had my Helix mattress for years and multiple Helix mattresses In fact, I'm such a good father. I've gotten them for kids Go to Helixleep d. com slash F friendly Fire, twenty seven percent off sitewide, Helixleep dot com slash F friendly fire, twenty seven percent off sitewide. Make sure you enter our show name after cheheckout so they know that we sent you. Helixleep dot com slash friendly fire. Now before Bati was so rudely interrupted by that advertisement We can get back to a point What I was gonna say is yes, on the far right and the left, you see a similar kind of blame the Jews for everything. The Jews are all pedophiles, the Jewish state is undermining American interests, et cetera, etera. But I really kind of dispute this horseshoe theory because a horseshoe suggests that they're equal, but they really aren't in terms of the mainstream, which is I think what Drew was just pointing to The W has done, in my view, an admirable job of telling these guys like Massy This party has no place for you, Trump Tucker and Megan Kelly and Canda Owens out of the party basically. They have all been excised on my show. You've had congressmen, senators, members of the cabinet saying what happened to Tucker Carlson? I would be surprised if Tucker Carlson is at the next RNC. And while they're doing a really good job on the right of exercising this, the left is just allowing it to metastasize. They're turning the very same people into celebrities and really elevating their profile, campaigning with them, mainstreaming their views. So if I may just do a short plug for my book, The Jews and the Left U They're not the same. These are not the same. You've got one side that is deeply committed to saying we stand against anti Semitism. You're allowed to criticize Israel, of course, but we are not going to allow Jew hate to infiltrate and become mainstream. And the other side, which is saying, actually, no, this is the price of entry now, like the word Zionist is a full on slur I agree with that. Yeah, I think that's true I think the Republicans have been much better about this They definitely have. So speaking of brutalizing the left, are we about to just take out a hundred and fifty year old communist dictator in Cuba H anyone been I actually I've been kind of out happen. could happen. Yeah. they're threatening to prosecute Roel Castro, right? I mean, that's I think that's So presumably that's the precursor to maybe we go in and kidnap him and fly him in a tracksuit. And you just hope that, you know, whoever sponsors that tracksuit has really paid top dollar for it because Nike made bank off of that Maduro tracksuit. So if we're going to do this in full capitalist fashion, we don't just go and take Rel Castro. We get an endorsement deal and then we put him in a rebok track suit and really make some money back for the American people andre it out. Well, listen, before we get into it, even though Bata, I'm certain would look much better in a track suit and really anything else than Ben Dominich would, we unfortunately have to say goodye to Batia. We have to bring on Ben Dominich. I have no say over it. The producers make me do it. Batia, wonderful to see you As always, everybody should go watch Batia's show and follow her all over. Thank you for having me. God bless and protect you all. Take care. Good to see you. So, you know, we're talking about Tom Masy's future prospects. I mean, one of the other things here is that if you If you go out in a blaze of glory shouting about how you've started a movement, maybe you run for president or sponsors of calh are estimating like thirty six percent odds that Thomas Massey tries a twenty twenty eight presidential run, notot totally crazy. Honestly, I think that that's actually that might be low because somebody is going to have to try and be the avatar of the psycho Wilwright movement And it's not going to be, I think Joe Kent or Marjorie Taylor Green, a massy MTG ticket Man, that could that could do serious double digit numbers of voters. Well, there's also just I that'd be huge. Look, on the just on the libertarian point. I mean, put all the other controversy aside. If Massey is going to be mister Libertarian, there's always some guy doing that. You know, Ron Paul would run for president. Rand Paul has already signaled he does want to run. And Massey would have some juice to do that. There is that lane. The other thing that's kind of interesting because Massey's now a Republican, I think he's still a Republican, who's in opposition to Trump is if Trump is doing really, really well, you saw Rubio once again saying he would back JD, Trump reasserting control over the party. if it's like JD Rubio, if that ticket they keep floating from the White House, if that's the ticket If Trump's doing really well, there you go. You got it The Trump administration does collapse for whatever reason, then the Republicans who are going to have a better shot are the ones who are not tied to the administration. So all of a sudden then the Ron DeSantis candidacy starts to look pretty interesting if he assuming he doesn't join the admin or I'm not saying Thomas Massey or Rand Paul are going to be president, but all of a sudden, they actually do get a little boost to their prospects Yeah, but this is the place where AOC comes in. is this is my nightmare the Trump administration really tanks, which I don't think it's going to do actually. I think it's going come out at sing like a rose. But if it does, I think AOC is the most dangerous person in the country. The woman is a pretty an idiot and a fascist. I mean, it's an almost perfect combination to win over the left mister Dominic, you're in and we turn back Wh are you bringing me on? You could have kept her. I know she's so much nicer than you are, Ben. she's like more than Done. canan I make one more point about the massy thing before we turn to Cuba? Because frankly, I'm much more interested in the massy thing than the Cuba thing, too be honest with you, because nothing's happening in Cuba until it actually happens So I want to get your guys's take on this. they're kind of It's very weird that Thomas Massey decides that he's going to steer directly into crazyand. he was like hanging with Chenk Weiger and Annena Kusarion the day before a Republican primary in a bright red district in Northern Kentucky Right which is Libertarians are like the highest order. Libertarians are like. They just, I mean,isten they swing like sometimes Oh no, no, they're totally psycho. I mean, this is why their convention is the best to watch in TV, right? like every four years their convention is some fat dude with an iron cross dancing around without a shirt followed by some naked chick talking about how pornography is the most American thing. It's an amazing place, the Libertarian convention. But in any case, here's the question. I had three possible theories as to why Massey did this Theory number one is the most obvious, which is Trump decided that he was going to punch Massey as hard as he could in the face. Massey did not want to blame Trump. so he blamed the Jews, right? whichich is a typical thing. You see Tucker Carlson do the same thing where he says Oh, well, you know, it's Tump that I'm upset with. It's his puppeteers. it's the marionette masters who are really doing it. and those marionettes, the people who are handling all the strings, that's the Jews a great way to avoid hitting Trump in a race where Trump is hitting you is to say it's really not Trump. is's people who are beingip manipulative of Trump. That's theory number one. Theory number two is he knew he was toast, so he was going to steer directly into podcast to stand and try to make himself his next career. And again, we talked about that before. I think that's quite plausible. And then theory number three is that People like Masy spend an awful lot of time online and you just get brainworms. And once you get those brainworms online, it is very difficult to exercise them in real life because Let's be real, again, this was a district in Northern Kentucky in which Thomas Masseew made his number one issue, a small Middle Eastern state halfway around the globe, which about which is Again, only understandable if you have brainworms or if it's on purpose or if it's on purpose different way. So kind of wantan to know which theory of those three you buy. I'll give a charitable view, which is How did it start? It could have started from a real principled opposition to wars in the Middle East or I actually think it might have started a little earlier than that, but let's say it started there. There's no doubt that a ton of pro Israel Jews really wanted to get Nassy out. and Trump, you know, again, we were talking about it earlier, but I think Trump was really the factor that made the difference But nevertheless, It could well be the case that Even if Massey didn't start out like smacking at the Jews, or you know, you obviously had his Tel Aviv comment last night, it might just be the case that when he saw that his big opposition was going to be coming from pro Israel Jews, it just accelerated whatever trend was going on there. You know, in other words, like he had a it wasn't strateic It was emotional.ically Jewish money coming in. can I make a vote here for brainworms? Can I make a vote here for brainworms? Because know I know who Thomas Massey used to be. And he basically was this like hippie libertarian who was also somebody who would you know build these chicken coops and get make them controlled by Bluetooth and stuff like this. He was just sort of weird and eccentric But he really was not leaning into any of the crazy stuff that he leaned in all the way up to this. And that's why it doesn't really it makes it makes no sense that he would, you know, steer the rocket ship directly into the sun, you know, based on prior behavior and the way that he was just kind of this, you know, this loner who was kind of off on the side, you know, and the fact that he would pair up with Roana to deal in all of this bullshit going after Trump. Look, there are four thingsount on my Mount Rushmore of hate, it's communists, it's anti Semites, it's Karens, and it's hippies. And by the end of the day, he was hanging out with three of four of those and doing it all the time. So who does that? You know someone who who was a libertarian who has kind of rural libertarian principple or something like that who has the kind of pro life record that Massy had, the kind of pro gun record that he had in the past, stuff like that. You just don't anticipate him going in that direction. And so I think the last couple of years of him, he just went crazy and he started hanging around with the worst of the czy I think my vote is for a combination of the two theories. The one is the brainworms that he went crazy. It was exacerbated by the fact that Jewish money was pouring into the campaign against him. but also People do tend to look for an exit strategy, and it wouldn't surprise me whatsoever is as he started to go nuts, he started to see that little light at the end of the tunnel that ends up in Podkastistan and making good money and with a big audience. So I think there might be a combination of the passion and the greed because he didn' seem to lase his whole personality. You know, if it is the greed, I think that does speak to kind of where the Republican Party is. In other words, the anti Semitism and the conspiratorial nuttiness and sort of the Tucker wing of what's going on, that is an excellent exit strategy and it's a very poor entry strategy. And I think people are mistaking an exit strategy for an entry strategy, meaning that we've seen a bunch of candidates who are endorsed by Tucker who are getting their asses just handed to them election after election. whether it's Casey Putch against Ric Ramaswami, up in Ohio, James Fisbeck is about to get crushed by Ronald's down here. You have You have Masy who's now lost his seat. MTG has lost herercy. You know you're seeing this happen like over and over and over and over. And so you're seeing people exit and presumably make more money and get the strange new respect on the other end. But if you're a politician who is looking to get into sort of a position of power in the Republican partarty, is your best way of doing that? as an elected official, do you steer into Crazyland? O does it turn out that actually Normyland is the way that you get in and Crazyand is the way that you get out with money? No that's a good observation. There's also one sort of emotional aspect here because my theory is still a lot of this was exacerbated emotionally and kind of understandably The part that we haven't talked about is He started to fall afoul of Trump and get a little bit more eccentric than usual Right around the time his wife died. I mean, to what degree is this just his wife of decades died and he got kind of emotionally unmoored and it upended his political career. Is that too much psycho babble for political analysis I don't know him well enough to know that. I just know that he became unrecognizable to a lot of us who interacted with him, you know over the years. He, again, went for being this kind of country libertarian type who was always smiling and kind of happy and knew that he was basically irrelevant Being someone who was aggressively going after the most important person in politics in America, not just in his party, and doing so in ways that repeatedly involved him lying blatantly about all these sorts of things related to the Efstein files as Ben was saying earlier. So I think that there is something to that, Michael, but you know, I haven't had him on the psychoanalysis couch personally. R? I just understand's interesting though that that Tucker's lack of influence is the exact opposite of what Tucker himself predicted and that almost everything that Tucker predicts turns out to be the opposite, which I think is proof that God is a gigantic invisible Jewish man with a long white beard. I think he's just screwing with Tucker It isither not it's just the demon. I actually like looking at the way these these things have shaken out here, one there are two things that make me feel really good about it. One, even again, it's like I'm not I'm not a huge massi hater. I think for a lot of his career, he was great. It just irritated me when he was really turning away and kind of, I don't know, you know, opposing the party and the president. but nevertheless The two great affirmations are one Twitter iss not real life. Sometimes I' worry about that. Sometimes I think maybe Twitter is becoming real life, or's obviously. But no, there's a huge distinction between those things. And there's a big chasm between the hardcore politics on the ground and the political media. And so know if the podcasts conducted the election, the results would all be different, but they didn't. know it was conducted by voters in districts around the country. And we have so many data points. We have the Indiana data point, which again, that issue was redistricting We have the Georgia data point. That issue was really the election of twenty twenty. We have Bill Cassidy, We have that data point. We now have Massy. So it just it seems to me that the guardrails hold and politics is actually a little different than the entertainment project. If we had a polit have to have to break in here. I'm sorry, I have to break in here.. I have to break in here with a smooth segue into a policy genius commercial as soon as I think of one, I'll tell you what it is. But I think the important thing is like I could go look I could go at any minute in the middle of this conversation. I could just fall off my chair and this gone. And I want to make sure that the people that I care about, you know, there's only like one or two of them, that they are taken care of. And I think for all the stuff we remember, we often forget that that's an important thing. 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As long as I don't have to have a bag check up because I never la those for some reason So I just wanted to add, if you made a comment about political media, I think that if we had a functional political media that wasn't just interested in carrying water for the Democrats, the narrative after last night would be that Republicans are way more unified than Democrats are Over the course of the past couple of months, we've seen Democrats prevail in multiple primers. We've seen the situation it play out in Maine. We've seen the election of Mumdani. We've seen all of these different situations where the DSA backed candidate, the AOC backed candidate, has prevailed over people that the Democrats have actually preferred or the establishment has even anointed on their side And nobody's talking about that story in the legacy media because it's an inconvenient story and it's actually true. The fact is that they're only united about by the fact that they all loathe Trump. and it's just a contest of how much they loathe him between them. And that's, I think the real story of what's going on the left today, which is far more divided than the right after everything that's played out in these primaries And it's clear that unity really is a political virtue. You I think one of the real points of pride for Massey, and it's a point of pride among liibertarians is they love to point out how different they are, how they're willing to stand up to their party or how they I don't know how special they are. They love that, you know Individualist political ideologies do that. But unity really matters. you know, It's one of the four marks of the church per the Nican Ced. and it's important in your home, it's important, in your country. And it's certainly important in political parties. And so it's not just look, you don't want to blindly follow the leader of a party and the Republicans do a bunch of dumb things that we should try to fight against. But I can't help but going back to this clip that has been going viral of a journalist with an activist outside New York courourthouse talking about Luigi Mangioni and the killing of Brian Thompson. And this girl said, you know, his kids are better off without him It's this guy, you know, he deserved to die and you know, those kids they can enjoy the blood money. And what I keep coming back to, and we've seen this time and time again, obviously with Charlie's assassination and with the near assassination of Trump is that the left The mainstream swads of the left have been telling us for over a year now really for much longer, that they would want to kill us and will mock our kids when they have succeeded. They keep telling us that. And in the face of that We need party unity, not to be lemmings, not to be blind followers, not to be NPCs, but we need we can duke it in the primaries, but then we need to get in line, follow the leader and win elections. And to your point, Ben, I think that that really comes out pretty cleanly last night. There is a clear leader of the political party, there is a clear partarty apparatus, funding, media, organizing. and looking ahead to the midterms in twenty twenty eight, the stakes are very, very high and I'll take unity as a virtue I mean, I agree with that, but I think that what happened here and what's been happening is that there are lines drawn, right? Unity has to be around a thing. Right now, the unity in the Republican partarty is around the thing of the Trump administration Right And so you can say, well, you know, Masy was more of a principled conservative when it came to spending, which by the way, I agree with. I was very praiseworthy of Masy's positions for most of his career when it came to the role of the federal government, for example.. But the reality is that there were lines that were drawn. And then Trump is legitimately excising people from those lines. He's not just saying blank it unity, come hug me.. He's saying, listen Here's where the line is. And if you're on the other side that line, you're the other side of that line. The point that you're making about the Democrats is a good one. It also is demonstrated. they have embraced the worst parts of themselves. I mean, legitimately the worst parts of themselves. Hassan Piker talking about social murder with the New York Times about Brian Thompson. and then Hassan Piker, no shock, endorsing people like Abdul al Al Sayed,enate Democrat would be nominee in Michigan, who's probably going to end up win the nomination, who's like a full scale terrorism supporter. And by the way, Hasan Piker endorsing, wait for it, Thomas Massey. so there is this horseshoe that has taken place. I think Bob' earlier point is right, the part of the right wing horseshoe that is horseshoeing is being actively excised from the party byy President Trump, which is a pretty amazing thing actually. You know it's organizory of the guys furthest edge of a party that if they would only allow them to do their thing, they would win everything. The Democrats are going to test that theory. I mean, they've been testing it, and these DSA guys are going to get out there and it's going to be interesting to see how much you know leverage they have because there is a move to the left in a younger cohort of voters Usually we usually don't vote. So we've been safe from them, but they do get excited over a guy like Mom Dni. I think I think he is the only politician that I think of as actually being evil, Mom Dni. I think he's an actual bad guy, you know, an actual O only one. big Well, I mean, there's a lot of corruption, a lot of that stuff, but this guyatterers Plat Platner is legitately evil. I mean some of the stuff p the stuff that Patatterner is not yet. I Democrats or office holders. Oh yeah ye, yeah, for sure., I know what you mean. Bat Platanner is again, another guy who's being fully endorsed and legitimized by the entire Democratic partarty infrastructure. You have members of the Democratic media who are out there massaging a guy who wass saying on Reddit like a couple of years ago about how happy he was to watch a video of an American military member literally being killed I mean, he is Platner is disgusting, disgusting. and the Democratic Party is hugging him with both arms right now. I mean, legitimately saying, I mean there are people who are saying that he should run for Maine Senate and then he should run for president And the only saving grace of M Donn is wasnt born in America, because we can't run for the presidency, but Graham Platinner can. And there are a bunch of people in the Democratic Party who are rising. And the next generation of the Democratic Party is psychotic. mean fully damned crazy. Like they arere not remotely anywhere in the neighborhood of the same. And so you know I get asked the question a lot. Do we think that there's going to be a reversion to a sort of normal politics after this? The only way that that happens if the Democrats get absolutely shllacked. And I think that unfortunately, because of the polarized nature of the political system right now, the chances that they get totally shellacked pretty low actually Yeah I agree demons We don't have initialative terms. They just have to do bad. Yeah, the demonization thing that Michael was just talking about I think we need to really consider and take it seriously. I think people have kind of they've joked about it's starting to turn because of Luigginiania Gioni, because of a number of attempts on on Trump's life and of course, because of Charlie's assassination. But I think like I don't know why it hasn't gotten more attention that there have been multiple attempts on Sam Altman's life that the AI phenomenon is now creating and the demonization of billionaires that Bernie Sanders talks about that is echoed by so many not just on the DSA left, but just on the left generally, that that's going to create a climate in which These people they're not going to be able to live and work and have the kind of roles as captains of industry that they've had in the past without having the fear of the kind of backlash that these radicalmon demonizing elements of the left really, I think, believe in truly in their hearts. And that's something that is so evil and so atrocious in terms of American history. We've seen things like this happen in the past and it led to bombings, it led to assassination attempts, it led to things that were absolutely terrible for our fabric. And to see this happening in the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of America really is depressing to me Well, one one of the things that actually is unique, and Ben you're pointing it out here is that in the history of the United States, when there are assassination attempts, typically it is people who are involved directly in the business of politics Right? It's RFK getting shot or ML K getting shot Or even even Charlie in the line of MLK, right just being a political activist and not to, you know say they were saying the same thing or anything. But the reality is that it is now extended out to almost Russian revolution style violence, like going after people who are just capaptains of industryes as you say, people who are running companies, people who are just engaged in the marketplace, like the actual marketplace If you had said to me fifteen years ago that there would be an assassination attempt on the president, I said, okay, that's kind of like unfortunately a relative norm in American political life Even if you had said to me there would be an assassination of a high level political activist like Charlie, I said that's unique and horrifying, but not totally unepect If you would say to me that we would be at a point where you know people like Jeff Bezos or a Mark Zuckerberg or a Sam Altman, that these are people have to walk around twenty fourty seven security for the crime of creating products and services that people want to buy. And these are the bad guys now. The United Healthcare CEO is now considered the bad guy engaged inotequote social murder You're talking about true Russian revolution style revolutionary violence directed against an entire class And that's That's scary stuff. I mean that is that is a completely different thing. And it also these are all soft targets we should also point out this has happened before, and we kind of forget about it in American history, but you think about the Poma raids, you think about the early part of the twentieth century, you had anarchists and communists who were setting off bombs on Wall Street, who were setting off bombs and shooting people in the capapitol. You had a Marxist professor from Harvard, in nineteen fifteen, of course it was Harvard shooting up or setting off a bomb in the capapitol You did have these kinds of anarchist bombings about almost exactly one hundred years ago. you're seeing them begin to crop up again. The last time that that happened, the federal government came in and curtailed civil rights and put these people in prison, deported these people, got them out of our country. Whether or not we have the ability to actually exert that kind of political authority or the desire to do so right now, I'm not so sure. But we have seen this play out before And the only way that we were able to survive it right around the time of the Russian Revolution, when Russia did not survive it is because we wielded federal authority in a very, very strong way. And if we don't do that now, I fear that the problem won't resolve itself on its own Well we'll get to more on that in just one second. First. We need to talk about how you talk. and I mean like actually talk, like on your phone. One of the weirder financial habits people have is you will spend hours comparison shopping for a plane ticket that saves you like twelve bucks. and then you'll continue paying eighty or ninety bucks a month for wireless service without any question. Andt a certain point, you have to ask yourself, why am I doing that? especially now that companies like PureTal exist Ter Talk is veteran led. it's backed by one hundred percent US based customer service and now offers unlimited high speed data for just thirty fourars ninety nineents month a pretty major shift because unlimited high speed data at PurureTalk used to start around fifty five bucks a month, but PureTalk has continued pushing to offer more value at lower prices. so If you looked at PureTalk before and you didn't make the switch, well, that was double view. You should have done that. And now you should probably take another look. One thing people always ask is whether the service holds up compared to the massively overpriced major carriers. The answer is, I mean, it's yes, but you should try it yourself. PureTalk lets you test the service for thirty days with no contract and no cancellation fees. There's really pretty much no downside to seeing whether it works Knowles, I know that you have been using PureTalk. How has your service been? I absolutely love it. I've had my PureTalk phone for about six years now. The customer service is great because they speak English and they speak it in a normal American way. But too, it is actually the best service in the country. A lot of people hear that and they think, oh you use similar towers, similar coverage. No no. It is the same towers, it's the same coverage as the best places in the country and you can even take it overseas if you're going on vacation this summer. So it's just phenomenal. I could not possibly recommend it highly enough Well,ll take it from Knows. It's the one issue I trust him on. The switch itself can happen in as little as ten minutes. And again, if you need help, that US based customer service team is standing by, head on over to pureTalk dot com slash shapiro, cllaim unlimited high speed data for just three thousand four dollarsine nine c. Again, that's pureTalk dot coma slash shapiro. to switch to my wireless company, and Kns's wireless company, and America's wireless company, PureTalk Were saying goodye to you, Mr. Dominic Because you don't have a doctoral degree, and we are replacing you with dor. Ees. Good to see you. all of us. G'sood to see you. I'm an honorary doctor. so if anyone ever, you know has a heart attack on an airplane, I'll say, hey hey Who needs a commencement speech? I'm here. I got you. I'm totally recovered. Do we have Dror Oz with us? There. doror Oz, goodood to see you, sir Good afternoon everybody. How are you doing very, very well. I know we're all here just you know, babbling and cackling and giggling. Whereas you are not only helping to lead you know health in the country, but also rooting out all of that terrible fraud, which we have not talked enough about Well, maybe it put in the context of affordability because I think for a lot of Americans, it's what they're most concerned about. And if you just took the fraud out of Medicare and Medicaid, and we estimate there's probably a hundred billion dollars of fraud. on the programs that the government pays for you to get better health, that would allow us to double the life expectancy of the Medicare Trust fund. Just to put that in context. If you're working your tail off right now watching the show and you're worried Medicare was not going to be there for you when you reach the ripe old age of sixty five, it's the parachute that's going to catch you and deal with your health issues's costing you an arm and a leg you can keep your arms and legs, then you should be pretty much with us on this fraud issue because by doubling the life expectancy of the program, we'll make sure it's there for you and for your grandkids. And that's the kind of discussion we need to be having in earnest with each other because the fraud is so large, it's so weaponized that we have to start asking ourselves Is this really a flaw for state leadership for governors? Or maybe there's a feature here we had noticed before, which is why they've allowed it to go unimpeded for so many years canan you explain what kind of fraud is taking place exactly I'll give you three examples. So South Florida, where you guys have some affinity, is a state that has generally done okay on fraud waste and abuse, but in the area of durable medical equipment, Where you know the wheelchairs and canes, these companies have now grown so quickly that we have twice as many of these durable medical equipment suppliers as McDonald's in South Florida. It's impossible that that many people want to sell you wheelchairs. But that's the norm. We think the Cuban government's involved, because many of the perpetrators actually flee back to Cuba. Even worse, one third of all hospices in the entire country are in Los Angeles Not California and actually specifically the city of Los Angeles. Now that would imply a very high death rate in L.A And no matter what we might say about Los Angeles, that's just not the truth And so if you have one third of all of the hospices taking care of people at the end of their life with dignity in one city, then we would have to assume most of those folks are fraudulent. In fact, half of the people in Los Angeles who at the hospice centers, we do think are fraudulent, and we have stopped paying Almost half of them already. And here's the craziness of us eight hundred of these hospices, we've stopped paying. We've had maybe two dozen complaints Most of these guys say, all right, gigs up, you know, they came looking for me. and we know one day we'd be out of business. We're going to go defraud somebody else. But the fact that could have occurred under the watch of Gavin Newson, even though he was warned Four years ago by the state auditor genereral that there was widespread fraud and really just did performative things to pretend he was dealing with the crisis Why should the federal government have to come in and clean up the mess? Well, unfortunately, it's federal dollars they're spending. So literally New Mexico, another blue state and Mississippi, a red state, their tax bills are higher because those folks who don't have the income of people in California are paying extra federal taxes so we can transfer it right to Los Angeles where the unmitigated disaster of fraud, not just in hospice, but in other programs exist. Let me give you a third example, and then we can come to the why question, which is always the most important one. New York City, New York state. These are, you know, big prosperous areas. The number one job growth, in fact, the number one job of all in New York State is a personal care service attendant. Now what does that mean? That means we're paying someone to carry your groceries up the stairs to your kitchen That person is often your child or the neighbor's kid. And your neighbor's kid's driving you to the doctor's office. So all these services that historically your family would do for you, we're not paying someone to do for you. It's become a jobs program. Let's take it to the Y question Why would it be that you would allow that much growth? Why does California have twice the amount of money being spent on these same personal care services than the national average? It's because if you're not making jobs yourself and you want to pretend like you're creating jobs, and you want to be able to get federal tax dollars to pay for those jobs and then tax those that income, so you have more state revenue. Well, you'd create personal care services. It's literally exactly what they have done in New York and in California. And here's the part that's really getting me, They're unionizing those workers. whichich means we're going to help the union that's know the big service workers union in New York double in size. All that union dues and all the taxes on that, that all flows back potentially for political patronage purposes to support the single dominant party in New York State and California So doctor Oz, other than sort of the rooting out of the fraud that's happening, what systemic changes do you think need to be made to how the federal government deals with Medicaid at the state level? I know there' been a lot of critiques of the Block grrant program because it basically removes a lot of the incentive for states to actually police their own fraud because if you're just getting a chunk of change, it doesn't really matter to you whether or not you identify the fraud or not, the chunk is the same. What sort of systemic changes do you think need to happen Oh, this is very addressable Well. First of all, you need a federal government that wants to do their job The prior administration gutted the Medicaid program integrity. There were, and I'm going to be clear about this, there were six people left that were aware of that were working in Medicaid program integrity for the country at CMS the agency that I'd run for the president. And that basically means we're not serious about this. We just want you to enroll as many people as possible into the Medicaid program. We don't want to hear about fraud. and that's what I was told by people who are here because they were told, listen, just you know go do something else. justust don't focus on the fraud issue because you're going create a narrative, a micr narrative that doesn't agree with our Our administration policy. But you also have to have states that want to work with us. and we need an all government approach. So what the presresident did by appointing JD Vanch to be the head of this White House anti fraud task force. And we've been doing announcements as you've been witnessing, frequently highlighting these realities is if I've got a problem at CMS and I'm the insurance company and I see that there's some ab bearrancy in payments. We've doubled or triplpleed the payments in an area doesn't make any sense I can go to DOJ, FBI, the Office of Inspector General, and they're going to actually work for me with me rather, and take charge of this issue to actually investigate crime. Or I can go to Scott Beston the Treasury. and he's going to actually use forensic accountants to find out where's the money getting laundered to? Like Who are the big players involved? Because it turns out we have foreign groups that are involved in organized criminal activities and foreign governments, we believe, that may also be involved in these endeavors. These are not mom and pop setups. We need an all of government effort. and finally, governors have to feel the pressure. Governor Walt stepped down In Minnesota because of pressure over the massive amount of fraud that he was unwilling to take charge of when he was governor. We had the governor of Maine has now step down. Others may as well. If your governor iss not willing to do their job, you the people should be upset because you're compromising your people and your state programs by not taking charge of the fraud. Medicaid has to be run by the states Medicaid therefore should be matured and nurtured and for good reason protected by state leadership against this kind of fraud. And if the federal government has to step in because our tax dollars are being abused, it's not going to be a happy day To what degree is all of this fraud organized? To me, with my political cap on, that's what's most interesting. Not just that some scam artists are trying to bilk the system but that there is a system of patronage that has politicians not just looking the other way, but really in some ways cooperating with it. You mentioned Governor Walls, there are plenty of accusations there. So how organized is this? Who can we bring to account, not just for stealing some taxpayer dollars, but for setting up a system that's fundamentally unjust Well, I just interviewed a whistleblower yesterday from Minnesota. She she worked in state agencies. She's a Democrat, by the way, who was raised a Democrat, was a Democrat. And as soon as she began raising concerns about the fact that there was a disproportionate amount of money being taken by the Somalians in Minnesota, she was quickly ostracized and blocked off And she said the big problem there was they did not want to be perceived as racists They want to be Minnesota nice. And that doesn't mean that you literally blind yourself to the reality of criminal activities, but because she was willing to call that out, she was ostracized And I think that's part of the puzzle, that people aren't willing to just do the right thing. Part of it is they recognize that by doing the right thing, they might actually look worse in the eyes of their voters. Some people may not like the fact that you're going after criminal entities. And these are dangerous groups that intimidate witnesses. If you go to Fhing Queens in New York, you're not going to get any of the Chinese folks who live there to talk to you about the fraud that they're witnessing. But we know there's tremendous amounts of fraud. Human trafficking, by the way, lots of other bad things because once you tolerate corruption, it spreads widely. But there has to be a change in expectations. Many states have normalized fraud. Now think about this. If it's okay for a doctor to lie about a patient needing hospice by claiming that they're going to die when in fact, they don't have any problems whatsoever that are immortal or even near immortal. They're selling their souls And what we have allowed to happen is it got worse during COVID, when there was a general belief you could just throw money at the problem and hope it worked out. And then a lack of policing program integrity over the last administration's tenure. you're left with a system where fraud is normalized, where corruption is what's always out there. So you're looking for your little handout. Like many countries that have fraud It' systemic. Everyone gets a little piece of the action. everyveryone dips their beak into the equation. But I was told this by a friend of mine, and this is a profound statement that he made. They said when Republicans win the White House, everybody wants to be the Secretary of Treasury. Everybody wants to be the ambassador to England. That's what Republicans seek. When a Democrat wins the White House, they want to get control of health and human services Bea that's where the big money is. Our budget is almost two trillion dollars And that money flows through many systems where all you need is a beneficiarary's identification number to serve as a credit card. you can take advantage of the system So we have got to create a world where taking advantage of our most vulnerable Americans is no longer acceptable. Yes, we need to do that. Two things I really desire. I would desire to totally clean up HHS with all of this fraud. I would also desire to be the ammbassador to England. That sounds like a great job. doctor Rzz, we've taken up enough of your time. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you for everything you're doing And got speed on this very important task. Now we turn to a man who every day goes by will more likely need health carere coverage. And that is, of course Andrew Playman This Memorial Day, and I remember the first Mmorial day This Memorial Day weekend get forty five percent off an annual Daily Wire plus membership That's too nice for these people. God, here's what you get. exclusive member only content like Real History with Matt Walsh, which has new episodes every single month. And frankly, we've got a lot more coming, shows you haven't seen, content you haven't heard about yet. All exclusive to members. this is the time to join forty five percent off dailywire dot comot do it today or else Do it, do it right now. That's what I'm gonna to leave you on. Just go do it. I don't want to put any distraction in your head before then. and I hope everyone has a good memorial dayay. Good to see you, gentlemen You' to you, Michael Good talking