← Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
SITREP 30: Epstein's Rolodex, Iranian War Games, and a Medicare Heist Exposed
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We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created. As a member of Congress, I get to have a lot of really interesting people in the office, experts on what they're talking about. This is the podcast for insights into the issues. China, bioterrorism, Medicare for all, in depth discussions, breaking it down into simple terms. We hold. We hold. We hold these truths. We hold these truths. With Dan Crenshaw, the eagle has landed. Welcome to the Situation Report. This is sit rep. Number 30. Thanks for joining me as we cover the most interesting news around the globe. So first, let's start with the Epstein files. The Department of Justice released another massive tranche of those files. So the latest release contains more than 3 million documents, emails, photos and videos connected to Jeffrey Epstein. This release implicates a lot of powerful public figures and spotlights private communications and connections with Epstein that range from acquaintances to very concerning common interactions. So among those prominent names are people like Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, Steve Tisch, Peter Attaia, and many others. And they've all rushed to deny or downplay their connections to Epstein. Even Katie Couric is caught complimenting a lasagna that she apparently tried at one of Epstein's parties. Martha Stewart tried repeatedly to get Epstein's phone number. So this is the third of what will be many releases as the Department of Justice continues to release files to the public. And to be clear, nobody's saying that anybody appearing in any email or photo necessarily means they committed a crime. But we are saying sunlight might be the best disinfectant because these files show how comfortably the elite circulate around some of the most despicable people alive. And even years later, we're still dragging the truth out one document dump at a time. I know people want to see accountability for that. Now to Iran, it's ramping up regional threats as accounts of regime violence continue to emerge. So their regime is doing what it does best. They're threatening the region, killing their own people, and then pretending to want diplomacy. So while Supreme Leader Khomeini warns of regional war if the US Intervenes, Iranian officials are quietly floating the idea of talks with strings attached. President Trump's position is clear. We don't negotiate from weakness and we don't forget who's pulling the trigger on their own streets. The Trump administration is considering direct negotiations later this week in Oman. But their message is simple. If Iran wants a seat at the table, it has to come with clean hands, not blood soaked ones. Because domestically, the regime's crackdown on protesters turned into an Absolute massacre. There's estimates that up to 12,000 civilians may be dead. On the military front, the US Navy F35C shot down a Iranian drone after it aggressively approached the USS Abraham Lincoln. The IRGC also attempted to harass US Flags tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Now meanwhile, US Special envoy Steve Witkoff is preparing for those talks and he's going to go in well prepared. Now back home here, we have found some more fraud. So in Los Angeles, hospice fraud reaches billions as Medicare providers scam the federal system with fake companies. The auditors and prosecutors report that hospice fraud in Los Angeles has become a billion dollar scheme. The statistics from LA are driven by fake companies, ghost patients, corrupt doctors, and even organized crime that drain Medicare and block seniors from proper care. So Director Dr. Oz, CMS Director, reports that Los Angeles county accounts for 18% of the nation's home health care bill. This becomes suspicious because LA county has 1923 hospice providers, which is very unusual because that number exceeds the combined total of 36 states and is 33 times the number of hospice providers in Florida and New York, two states with significantly more seniors than California. So that's suspicious. So Investigators then identified 42 hospice providers within four blocks in Van News and 287 within a two mile radius, with many operating out of strip malls, unmarked buildings, a wrecking yard, even a vacant lot. These patterns that are strong indicators of potential fraud and definitely warrant investigation. Now, generally speaking, scammers are getting beneficiaries to agree to hospice care even though they don't qualify, and then the government pays for it. And also, by the way, those patients then lose other benefits. But here's a real deeper problem, and it's that Medicare and Medicaid here historically relied more on recouping fraudulent payments after they occur rather than proactive standardized verification metrics to prevent the fraud in the first place. The last couple years alone, there's been fraud cases that have cost taxpayers billions and billions of dollars. And when it explodes like that, the necessary response actually hurts legitimate patients first because there's payment freezes, there's tire prior authorizations, delayed enrollments, there's providers that pull back. So that means seniors and vulnerable people face longer waits. They get fewer hospital hospice options, they disrupted care, all while the scammers have already cashed out. So it's not just that they're stealing from the government or the taxpayer. They're literally stealing care from seniors and the disabled and the most vulnerable amongst us. Speaking of the most vulnerable amongst us, let's talk about children. So medical experts finally coming out against gender transition surgeries for children. Thankfully, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons has become the first major US Medical association to formally oppose so called gender affirming care for minors. This comes a few days after a plaintiff was awarded $2 million in New York courts after suing her doctors that pushed a double mastectomy on her when she was only 16. All in the name of gender affirming care. The same day that ASPS made this statement, the American Medical Association AMA tried to agree, tacitly agreeing, they said, quote, the evidence for gender affirming surgical intervention in minors is insufficient and that surgery should generally be deferred to adulthood, unquote. Well, that's funny. I'm old enough to remember 2021 when the AMA begged states not to interfere with surgical mutilation and hormone replacement on the grounds that these treatments were medically necessary. Looks like they reverse course on that one. And on the malpractice verdict in New York, a former trans clinic whistleblower has called the lawsuit the tip of the iceberg for the transgender teen industry. And it's about time that victims of this perverted ideology get to push back. So I'm proud to see both the medical societies and the courts giving them a win. And I think years of, of, of calling this out and passing legislation on this also helped. We have finally started to win the culture war on this and we've been, I've been fighting this myself for a long time now. Let's get out of, let's, let's leave orbit for a second. NASA moves Artemis 2 mission to March 2026 after a test run issue. So NASA has pushed the Artemis 2 mission out of the February launch window and is targeting March as the earliest after the so called what's called a wet dress rehearsal. Uncover technical issues, notably a liquid nitrogen leak. I don't know what that means, but it's probably bad. So it's got to be fixed before launch. So NASA's planning another wet dry, a wet dress rehearsal before proceeding. A wet dress rehearsal is a full practice launch where the rocket is fully fueled. The team runs down the countdown almost to liftoff, but doesn't launch. And there was a hydrogen leak during fueling that forced pauses and ultimately stopped the countdown around T minus 5 minutes. Additional issues were also noted including extended Orion closeouts, ground audio dropouts, cold weather impacts on cameras. So of course safety remains the top priority. So the launch is going to occur when the team is confident that the system is ready. Remember Artemis 2 is the first crewed mission of the Artemis program, sending astronauts around the moon and back to Earth to prove the Space Launch system Orion spacecraft and ground systems are safe and ready for future lunar landings. So it's the start of a long term lunar program aligned with national space policy and aimed at sustained moon missions. And this is the first time humans go beyond the Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. Now, let's go into some media bias of the week. Remember Alex Preddy? He was fatally shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis during a physical altercation with them. The leftist media, of course, have since made a hero of the man, where video evidence has now shown him to have actually have a history of agitation with federal law enforcement. Twelve days before that incident, a video showed Preddy shouting and spitting at federal agents before kicking the taillight out of a federal vehicle. And many have seen the video in which he was tragically shot. And it does show him inside of physical altercation with multiple officers. It's, it's a tragedy that he was shot. He has every right to carry his firearm, of course, but just, just laying out a good idea for everyone. It is a bad idea to get into fights with cops and also have a firearm on you. They don't know what you intend to do with that firearm and they will take defensive action. And now in other headlines, on Monday, Bill and Hillary Clinton avoided criminal charges after agreeing to appear for the House Oversight Committee to testify on the committee's investigation on the Jeffrey Epstein. They agreed to appear just 24 hours before we in the House were set to vote on holding them in contempt of Congress. In other news, President Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair, pending confirmation once Jerome Powell's term expires in May. So a little bit about Warsh. He's served inside the Fed before. He has got experience across big finance like Morgan Stanley and also in the White House Economic Council. Notable is less his resume than the signal. We could be seeing a potential change in tone at the Fed at a time when inflation, borrowing costs and long term debt are shaping all of our everyday economic decisions. And as much as I hate to talk about the Grammys, one moment has to stand out. It's Billie Eilish, of course, accepting her award for Song of the year. Who knows what the song was? Who cares? But she of course had to make a political statement, as these annoying people always do. And she just had to say, I don't know if this had anything to do with her song. Probably not. She said quote, no human is illegal on stolen land. Okay, well, here's the funny thing. Billy has a $14 million mansion in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is also the historical home of the Tongva tribe and also probably many other people before them. The New York Post then reached out to the tribe who quickly confirmed that Billy has not reached out to them about returning her mans despite the fact that it does sit on stolen land. But they were certainly open to the proposal. They said you have to laugh a little at that. So Also this last week the world has seen gold prices hit record highs followed by the sharpest one day drop in 50 years. That's gold, silver, even crypto being pretty volatile lately. So this is a great read, a great one pager on why the world used the gold standard for so long and how it worked and how it worked in practice. Grace gives some great insight into exactly why we do care about the price of gold. So that piece to read is by Michael D. Bordeaux. It's called the Gold standard. It's on econ library@econlib.org that's all folks out there.