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Real America’s Voice
END GOVERNMENT FRAUD, TRUMP'S PLAN FOR CHINA SUCCESS | JUST THE NEWS - NO NOISE
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This is an iHeart podcast.
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Guaranteed Human hate cleaning, Hate scrubbing, hate dishwashing. Bro, we got you millions of videos about smart cleaning hacks will make your chores feel like a breeze. Download TikTok and check it.
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Good evening, America and welcome to the Thursday edition of Just the News. No Noise. I'm your host John Solomon reporting to you as always from the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. where we have some breaking news. Just a few moments ago, the United States Supreme Court allowed mail order abortion drugs like Mifeprestone to continue to be sold across America while they decide the legal merits of whether such drugs can cross straight lines, state lines without state regulation. It's a very big issue. The fact that the Supreme Court allowed it to continue during this period of legal debate is a signal where the justices may end up on this. A lot of people watching that. You can get the very latest over@just the news.com now. Meanwhile, all eyes are in Beijing where President Trump has completed day one of his historic summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. There's some good news from the summit that my co host Amanda will get to in just a second. But first I want to get to one of the points of contention. Taiwan. President Xi warned President Trump today at their Beijing summit that the US And China could see conflicts. Those are the exact word to use, quote, unquote conflicts. If Taiwan was mishandled. Those remarks were reportedly delivered in a closed door meeting. We also saw Chinese police clash with Secret Service over protection at the event. Chinese security officials and the Secret Service experienced a little bit of a standoff after the Chinese officials blocked an armed Secret Service agent from entering Beijing's Temple of Heaven. Reporters in China said the Secret Service was blocked from entering the temple with a weapon, which triggered an intense standoff that delayed entry into the site for about over a half hour because of heated discussion. So far, the White House and Secret Service have not commented publicly but on that reported standoff. And finally, for some more news back at home, a story we broke here at Just the News a few hours ago. The House Oversight Committee today subpoenaed a liberal dark money group for records about the secretive Chorus program, which organizes liberal influencers to promote democratic messaging online. The committee believes there might be possible violations of campaign finance disclosure laws. Committee launched an investigation last November of the Chorus program, raising concerns they asked for voluntary disclosure of information. Apparently they didn't get what they wanted and as a result today they dropped a subpoena on the group. In just a few moments, we're going to have the man behind that subpoena, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer. But first, let me get you to get you to some more headlines from my amazing co host Amanda Head. Amanda, they won. A little bit of tension, a little bit of history, a little bit of cordiality. Had it all in Beijing today.
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B
Indeed, all of those aspects. And you just brought up some of the points of conflict between President Trump and Xi Jinping. But the president says that there has been a lot of positive points, too. Earlier today, the president expressed his admiration for China and its people. But more importantly, the visit has sparked intense debate on both sides. And issues like critical minerals, Iran, Taiwan and the race for artificial intelligence, intelligence dominance remain at the center of this high stakes meeting. Now, on the subject of Iran, the president shared some of his key takeaways from his meeting with Xi, specifically addressing China's support for Iran and whether Beijing will continue providing military equipment to the Iranian regime. So here is what President Trump had to say about China's relationship with Iran. Take a listen when you say support.
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D
They're not fighting a war with us or anything. No, he said he's not going to give military equipment. That's a big statement. He said that today. That's a big statement. Said that strongly. But at the same time, he said, you know, they buy a lot of their oil there. They'd like to keep doing that. He'd like to see Hormo straight opened.
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E
I said, well, we didn't stop it.
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D
They did it. Then we stopped them.
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E
You know, sort of interesting, he joked.
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D
He said, you know, it's sort of, they stopped it.
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C
Then you stopped them.
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D
But they'd like to see it opened. But they actually closed it. He didn't like the fact that they're charging tolls. I don't know if they are not. I don't know who would pay them. I mean, where do they put the money? The, the country's decimated, you know, the charging tolls, where's the money going?
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B
So of course, while President Trump says that Xi Jinping has pledged to not send military equipment to Iran, I do believe he is taking that all with a grain of salt. Salt. And issues like AI, Taiwan and critical minerals remain to be decided. So, John, more of these talks going to continue. President Trump is going to be departing, coming back to the White House. I believe he will be back here by tomorrow afternoon and just a zip, zip trip to the, the other side of the world.
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C
Yeah. And with a lot at stake and with a lot covered. I mean, listen, a lot of Things get covered today. China made a lot of promises. The key now will be can we authenticate those promises with action. I want to remind people just a couple of weeks ago there was a big bust by the FBI on fentanyl precursors. That was right after Cash Patel met with the Chinese intelligence services. They helped him make that case, according to my sources. So there's some signs that China's helping out here and there. I mean, everything with China has to be verified before it can be trusted. So we'll see where this all leads me another day that we'll see what comes out of it. All right, as we mentioned at the top of the show, folks, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, the man who unraveled the Biden scandal, the fraud scandals all across this country, and now diving into the dark money world that liberals exploit to influence elections, James Comer spent some time with us. Have a watch what we talked about. All right. Joining us now, the man who sent that very important request for evidence today. Yes. We're digging into to the Democrats dark money machine. Finally. He's the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, a man who got us a lot of truth when it came to Biden fraud. You name it, James Comer has been on the case and we're lucky to have the chairman here right now. Mr. Chairman, thank you for rejoining us. All right, so sir, you have a probe of a significant dark money machine. It's been operating for years. It's part of the bigger left takeover of America. Tell us what, why you sent this letter and what you hope to get in return for evidence.
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D
Well, we're Investigating is the 1630 funds chorus creator incubator program. And this is an effort by the left to skirt campaign finance laws, every type of ethical transparency rule that would be out there. We believe that this is in violation of many laws. This is something, as you mentioned at the onset, the Democrats have been doing for years. This is ironically kind of like what they would accuse Trump of doing with in Russia having an influence campaign. That's what the Democrats do. That's not what the Republicans do. That's, it's not what Russia does. It's what the Democrats do. And we've, we've been trying to get information from them. They turned over very little. So we've subpoenaed them and we're not going to let up because we believe that we have a good idea where the funding is coming from and we're going to try to not only blow the lid off this and let the American people know the truth, but also try to hold some people accountable.
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C
That's important.
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B
Well, Mr. Chairman, especially in the 2024 campaign, I think a lot of us noticed, especially young influencers on social media, particularly TikTok, who were out there giving these talking points for Kamala Harris and Democrats. And the law is pretty clear on this when it comes to disclosing that you are getting paid to put out these talking points. How badly would it hurt Democrats if there was a disclaimer on these messages?
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D
It would kill them. I mean, it would absolutely kill them. This is what the Democrats have been doing. They operate a propaganda machine. They have all these paid influencers. They have all these phony names of organizations that are supporting Democrats or opposing Republicans. They do everything they can to mislead the public. And they don't have disclaimers. They don't disclose who their donors are. That's where the violation of campaign finance laws come in. And, you know, there are two things that we've done, John, that have really crippled the Democrats. The investigation of ActBlue and the fact that all of Act Blue's leadership is left and the fact that they've had to put the safeguards on now on their credit cards. The donations to ActBlue have gone down significantly. That was a big cash flow source for the Democrat attack Blue. They're getting less donations now than they ever have on that platform at a time when they should probably be getting a whole lot more. And now this dark money group that we all know that they've got all these dark money groups out there, we've identified one of the main ones, one of the worst operators. And I think we're zeroing in on them. So this is really going at all the ways that we found the Democrats and in the federal elections have been cheating. So I think this is a good sign that maybe we're close to having pretty fair elections this November.
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C
Yeah, what an amazing accomplishment. You have used oversight to achieve that, to just use the power of oversight. In ActBlue. There's always been that concern that the credit card security rules are lessened so that foreign money might be able to come in with this dark money group. You said you have an inkling where you think the money came from. Any chance that a foreign adversary could be behind any of these dark money groups?
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D
I think it's very possible, but I think a lot of the usual suspects are the ones that are going to be behind it. I think the group that I talked about a lot during the Biden investigation that was involved with Dan Goldman's family. I think you're going to see that they were one of the main funders of, of this, this dark money group that we zeroed in on. You know, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Soros and, and others, but at the end of the day, I think that they know we're onto them. And it's clearly a violation of campaign finance laws. There's not many judges in America that wouldn't agree with that. So hopefully we can get the information and continue to keep an eye on them and, and, you know, at the very least, prevent them from doing this in the future.
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C
Huge.
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B
Mr. Chairman, I know, actually all three of us have probably had conversations about the birth tourism issue in this country. Peter Schweitzer just put out a book on it and put out some incredible, appalling statistics when it comes to this. Your committee is looking into this. It seems like China and Russia are the main countries that are implicated. But how, how dire is this issue? To what degree? How many people are coming here and doing this? I know there are four. Four companies you're looking into specifically.
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D
Yeah, it's a lot bigger than I ever realized. Schweitzer, you know, wrote the book and kind of educated us on it. We've got a new task force that we're going to be looking into. Things specifically like this. This is the real Trojan horse in America. This is where you've got a lot of our adversaries that are having children here taking advantage of the, the law that allows birthright citizenship. And it's a threat to our national security.
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C
It's such an important issue. And we now know that enemies and countries that should be more friendly with us, and maybe they are people like Mexico and China have an entire strategy in their country built around taking advantage of this tourism. It's just, it's really frightening. So I want to turn to something else that you've been on the lead on and I would say almost daily now you and your team are turning up these extraordinary examples. The one nation under fraud that we were subjected to being under Barack Obama and Joe Biden. It seems as though fraud wasn't an accident. It was maybe the purpose of some of these programs. How extensive is this? Are we looking at hundreds of billions? Do we reach $1 trillion of fraud? It seems to me you're uncovering a really massive scandal just in health care alone.
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D
It's massive. Just within the Medicaid and Medicare program. Under Obama and under Biden, the Medicaid program has just expanded greatly. It's covering things that, that were never intended to be covered. And you know, if you put more money into autism, guess what, they're, they're just miraculously all these people turn up with, with autism and all these providers are creating in the garages the, to bill Medicare and Medicaid for, for all these programs. And we support autism. We want to, you know, help anyone that's autistic and families that have children that are autistic. But the, the abuses in the programs like hospice and, and autism and drug rehabilitation and mental health. It's, it's preposterous the amount of fraud. And it's not just in the blue states. It's in the blue and red states. It's a lot worse in the blue states because if you find fraud in the red states, you've got governors in general assemblies that are willing to try to fix the fraud and prevent the fraud and put guardrails up in the blue state. They just want to attack Republicans for talking about the fraud.
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B
Mr. Chairman, you dig in on so many issues and one of them came home to roost. For all of us who spend time here in Washington D.C. a really sad story. A kid last night who was just playing basketball in northern D.C. shot and I know you've been looking into and trying to get to the bottom of manipulated D.C. crime, crime data. What have you discovered?
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D
Yeah, it just terrible. I mean this is a city that has a crime outbreak and when the President put a heavy National Guard presence, the crime went down. But that's not sustainable to keep a whole National Guard base essentially in the, in the city of Washington D.C. and you know when you pull it back, the crime goes back up again.
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C
Yeah, it is definitely broken. And you are shining in a big light on it, sir. You created a new task force with Congressman Gill who comes on this show a lot. We're always grateful for his participation. I think this is a really rich area of oversight and potential solution that can be put into place. Talk about the work of this new task force.
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D
I'm really excited. Brandon Gill is a superstar. He's a rising star in the Republican Party and on the House Oversight Committee and he's going to focus exclusively on this. We are focusing on institutional fraud within the universities, within government agencies where they've been infiltrated by left wing activists. They're misusing money, they're indoctrinating the next generation of Americans. They're spreading propaganda, left wing propaganda. And we're trying to highlight this, we're trying to out them. We're trying to hold them accountable. And what does accountability look like if you're a university misusing money? I think it looks like if you can get someone fired in a government agency, that's a, that's a pretty big win on the accountability front. That's about as good as it's going to get. So these are the things that we're trying to do and hopefully will be successful.
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C
It's amazing. I think you're beginning to expose this sort of infrastructure that's sort of like building a color revolution on our own ground, just trying to constantly put America in turmoil. And they're doing it sometimes with tax breaks and other things. It seems to me their day may, their days may soon be numbered. Do you think the work of the task force and the stuff that you're exposing now that the IRS comes behind you, the Justice Department comes behind you and puts some of these groups out of business, takes those tax exemptions away?
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D
John and Amanda, I feel a lot better about the Department of Justice today than I did about two months ago. I think there's a positive changes there. I'm seeing a level of aggressiveness and hunger and desire to hold people accountable that I haven't seen out of this, the Department of Justice. So I think, yes, to answer your question, I think they will come in and get our backs. And if we have criminal referrals, I think they'll try to prosecute some people.
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B
Excellent.
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C
And be welcome to the American public who just want accountability for those who have fleeced us. Congressman, Chairman, you've done such extraordinary work the last decade. Every time I turn around, you got a new and very important investigation. Great to have you on the show today. Thanks for joining us.
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D
Thank you all for having me.
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C
Yeah, we sure appreciate you. Thank you so much. All right, folks, we're going to take a quick commercial break. When we come back, we'll talk more about the president's historic trip to China, what we can expect to come out of it. Steve Yates, former national security adviser in the Trump administration, will tell. Tell us more right after these messages. DISH has been connecting communities like yours for the last 45 years, providing the TV you love at a price you can trust. Watch live sports news and the latest movies, plus your favorite streaming apps, all in one place. Switch the DISH today and lock in the lowest price in satellite TV starting at 89.99amonth with our two year price guarantee. Call 888-@dish or visit dish.com today.
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B
Welcome back, everybody, to JUST THE News no noise. As President Trump visits China, the administration is urging Chinese leader Xi Jinping to play a more active role in helping bring an end to the war with Iran. And at the same time, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, Taiwan. All of these issues remain at the very center of high stakes talks between the two world's largest powers. So joining us now to discuss this and more is senior research fellow at the Heritage foundation and former White House deputy National Security adviser to the Vice President, Steve Yates, returning to the show. Steve, great to see you.
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F
Wonderful to be back. Thank you.
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B
All righty. Round one is over. We all woke up to news. What seemed like some incremental progress. Progress. What is to come between these two world leaders? Anything that is some real tangible turnaround or progress?
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F
Well, it's always perilous to try to talk and pontificate in the middle of a major summit. We do have a good down payment on what the two elephants in the room are looking at and trying to accomplish. I think in day one, we really saw an exchange of core talking points and priority points. There's been a lot of focus on the Chinese message on Taiwan, which, at least in my experience, which is not modest. It goes back 40 years of watching these statements is pretty much in line with what most Chinese leaders have said. It's just a little bit more salt and pepper put on the public statement by the Foreign Ministry this time. And then the president laid down markers on a whole range of issues as is appropriate because as you've covered, there are so many issues at play where China affects the fundamental everyday life of Americans and our issues in other parts of the world of maybe cooperation on Iran. I have to say that I take that all with a degree of. I'll hear their words, but I want to see the actions. They didn't have a problem being a major customer of the world's leading state sponsor of terror. And I don't know that they really will shed a tear about the regime, but they kind of like getting along with that regime. So we'll have to see what they do on some of these things. There are a couple of political prisoners, religious prisoners, Ezra Jin, a pastor in China, Jimmy Lai, I think the world's most famous Catholic, imprisoned in Hong Kong. The president said he would raise those names. I believe he has and will again. Maybe this is part of part two of when the leaders meet. We might hear some more. But right now we have sort of dueling interpretations, somewhat of a gap between the Chinese and the English. And we'll see the great communicator Donald Trump. Bring it together tomorrow.
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C
Yeah, that's going to be important as day two rolls in. When you look out at the last few months, China said, and President Xi said, we are best when we working together, not apart. But China has done a lot in front of our own eyes to stick us in the eye with its thumb, sometimes sending weapons to Iran, buying illicit oil from Iran, fomenting unrest on our own soil through dark money groups and other things. We had a secret police station for which there was a conviction in New York yesterday. How do we deal with the fact that China, while it says many pleasant things during a gallant visit like this, often does a lot to poke us in the eye on a daily basis?
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F
Well, John, that really is the fundamental challenge. And I would say that President Trump maybe is not perfect at this. I haven't met the human being that is perfect at it. Certainly, he's better than all of his predecessors in doing things and outside of China to improve our negotiating position. So the actions he's taking at home in this hemisphere, in the broader Middle east, improving with our allies, we are in a much better position to negotiate. But the challenge is, as you say, they have a perfect track record of saying polite things in person. And I would just draw the following distinction. The Chinese Communist Party is a system. It's not an individual. And a lot of Americans, including the president, think of this as meeting with an individual and influencing that system through that individual. It's natural. It's the best we've got in terms of the opportunity. But those systems don't change strategy because of a meeting with an individual. So we can get tactical purchase of aircraft, agricultural goods, maybe some moves on the margins of other critical issues, maybe exchange of prisoners. But when it comes to opening up their market to social media and American tech in a responsible way, that's a system change. That's really hard. Moving away from funding Russia's war machine and Iran's terror machine, that's a system change. So we'll have to see whether the actions move after the summit. But I still think the president's done America a service by pushing these conversations.
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B
Steve. On the issue of Taiwan, she expressed to President Trump that essentially, there's not a universe that exists where you have an independent Taiwan and also peace in the Taiwan Strait. Is this issue dead in the water, or do you expect President Trump to push it further?
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F
Oh, I think it's dead in the water in the sense of. I don't. I don't see any reason why the president's going to relent on the American position. That would be, in Trump parlance, a bad deal. And in exchange for what? A blank check promise that may or may not have value in the future. So I see. And also it kind of belies the real strategic value of Taiwan, which is not just that they have lovely people and a beautiful democracy. A lot of Americans don't really want to go to war for that, but they are vital to a lot of supply chains. They are one of the most valuable stock exchanges in the entire world. More than 50% of all container traffic in the world goes proximate to the waterways of Taiwan. There's no way China does something belligerent towards Taiwan, where we don't have an immediate depression across the Western world by market crashes. And so there's really not a choice. The disciplined, freedom loving world has to maintain deterrence at some level. China has to understand that. And so right now, we're just dancing around it with China's talking points about it belonging to China. But if it was a part of China, they wouldn't have to keep talking about it. The fact that it is independent today is the reality they don't want us to see with our own eyes.
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C
Yeah, very important. Marco Ruba, very quickly, no matter what, what the shot across our bow was on Taiwan, Marco came back, said, nothing's changed on US Policy. Xi Jinping didn't change our thinking one bit on that. How important was it on their soil to hold our ground?
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F
I think it's vital. It also has the added virtue of just being true. And that's basically what I always felt like when I was in office. I wasn't any high and mighty person. There were other better people conducting diplomacy. But if someone from the Chinese government came in and I never delivered talking points, which is why some of my colleagues didn't like me very much. I just told them flat out, you know, don't try us on some of these issues. You need to know what the truth is so that you can avoid miscalculation. And when we have more power than you, you shouldn't be risking a conflict with us. And right now, indisputably, America is the sole dominant power in the world. And it really only comes down to when and how we want to use that influence. President Trump is kind enough to offer China an opportunity to cooperate and discover peace. But they're the ones that need to change. And hopefully that's the terms that the President is going to much more diplomatically than Crazy Yates. Sell over lunch tomorrow,
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B
Steve, some purchasing Opportunities, we will call them, were brought to the table as well. Reportedly, China agreed to purchase more soybeans, some energy products, I think liquefied natural gas and oil, even some Boeing jets thrown into the deal as well. Does this help to rectify the trade imbalance, and do you expect China to make good on it?
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F
Well, they have made promises to buy agricultural goods that have not come through in a complete way. So that's definitely a verify need. On aircraft, they tend to have a better track record over the decades because they have a real genuine need. And maybe on food, they are starting to have real, genuine needs, too, and they'll go ahead and buy more. Those are the kind of transactional, tactical things that you can reasonably do with these negotiations in the Trump administration. And it's a net positive for the American economy. And it keeps at least some modicum of trust for engagement to be of value between these two great nations. And so I think that it's a part of the mix, and I think the administration could legitimately claim a success on that front. But when it comes down to rebalancing the economic relationship, we would have perfect balance if China just honored a degree of reciprocity. We give them much more access in our country than they give us in theirs. That's why it was really interesting to have some of these huge CEOs present whose companies can't operate at all in China and have President Trump just lay out in front of Xi Jinping and his country, you guys really need to open up to a lot of Chinese people. They might have thought they were already open, but they're not.
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C
Not such a great point. The carrot in the stick on the American side, where China has always been access to our capital, access to our markets. There isn't a middle class that can buy China's manufacturing goods at the rate we can. How does the president use that over the next six months, a year, to get more out of the Chinese relationship in terms of its antagonism towards us?
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F
Well, his favorite tool, tariffs, has taken a little bit of a punch on the chin from the Supreme Court. But there are still plenty of other tools. And my understanding is that the economic team has found some workarounds, but clearly there's going to have to be some ways of balancing that out. I think that we have to hold firm on our auto industry. I personally consider that to be a national security strategic industry. We cannot have a manufacturing base capable of surging in a time of war if we don't have an active advanced manufacturing base doing other kinds of things. And cars are a really important part of that. Plus, Chinese cars are not just automobiles that families ride around in. They're moving surveillance devices and there's serious quality control issues and they're being an oversupply being dumped at below market prices. There's too many consequences wrapped up in that little gift from China. So I hope that we hold firm on those areas. But really, President, as young people might say, America maxing is the best thing he can keep doing, revitalizing America. Manufacturing, America, oil, minerals, everything America as much as we can with our reliable friends and allies. This PAX silica initiative out of the State Department, another excellent thing that extends American excellence in R and D. Win the space race, win the AI race. I love all that winning. That's the best thing we could be doing.
- [28:41]
B
American maxing, I love it. Senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Steve Yates. Steve, you always give us such great insight into all things China. Thanks for being here.
- [28:50]
F
Thank you both.
- [28:51]
B
Absolutely. All right, everybody. And coming up next, we continue our discussion on President Trump's visit to China with China expert and author Gordon Chang. Shop the Sherwin Williams Memorial Day sale and get 30% off paints and stains May 15th through the 28th. Whether you're refreshing your interior or exterior, we've got the colors to bring your vision to life. And with delivery, getting everything to your door is easier than ever. Shop online to have it delivered or visit your neighborhood Sherwin Williams store. Click the banner to learn more. Retail sales only some exclusions apply. See store for details. Delivery available on qualifying orders.
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C
Welcome back, America. As we mentioned at the top of the show, the historic summit in Beijing had lots of results, from a stark warning about Taiwan to major business deals to some general agreement on how China and the United States can work to solve the Iran crisis. Here to make sense of it all, I think America's premier expert on China, he's written many books. He understands that country better than anyone I know he is. Gordon Chang. Gordon, great to have you on the show.
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A
Thank you so much, John. And thank you, Amanda.
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C
Great to have you on. We love every time you come on. All right. A lot happened in a 24 hour window. There was some gallantry and pageantry. There were some serious discussions, a couple of shots across the bow. But give us your top line of where you think President Trump and President Xi left things as, as they depart this summit.
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A
I think the most important thing is Taiwan, and that is because Xi Jinping has made it a test of legitimacy and he has threatened to upend peace and stability over it. Now, he gave those stark warnings, as you mentioned, and we heard afterwards Secretary of State Rubio say, well, look, US Policy on Taiwan has not changed. And that's really important because Xi Jinping in general throughout this summit has been incredibly arrogant. And when he is arrogant, it means deterrence is eroding because he doesn't respect the United States. And so it's good for the United States to press back. And both President Trump and Secretary Rubio did exactly that.
- [31:16]
B
Yeah, Gordon, in the world of politics, kicking the can down the road should be a professional sport. It happens, unfortunately, also in the executive. You've seen many administrations prior to President Trump pushing topics along the road for the next person to deal with. And Marco Rubio actually spoke to this on Air Force One after the delegation, saying that this is a president who addresses things in the moment. He doesn't defer to a future administration. Do you think that she was prepared for that because she has experience with the president during his first term?
- [31:49]
A
Yes. And one of the things about the Iran war is it was not going to be popular to start out with. President Trump undertook it. This is a profiles and courage moment. Now, President Trump has not explained this to the American people or the people of the world as he should, because there's a lot of information that Trump has which I think paints a much darker picture of the situation, and the people in the world need to know that. So, for instance, you know, on April 1st, Trump had that addressed to the American people in one short sentence. He talked about Iran's ballistic missiles. The situation is far worse than the president talked about because the Iranians have a ballistic missile that can hit the United States, or at least it has all the components of it. And we know that because the North Koreans gave it to them. So this is a question of actually communication. This is a question of information warfare. And the Chinese have been waging it against us on Iran, and we need to wage it back.
- [32:51]
C
Yeah, that is so important. The two sides claim to have reached some general agreement on how to deal with Iran. Obviously, what China cares about is opening the Strait of Hormuz so that it can get its cheap oil back from Iran. We have an interest in keeping the Iranian radical regiment in check. Did. Did President Trump walk away with enough on Iran to take the next action in the theater?
- [33:17]
A
Yeah, we don't know that now, and we may not know it for quite some time until we see what China actually does. We, for instance, we know that China has been continuing to sell weapons to Iran during the continuation of this war. President Trump has threatened a 50% tariff on any country that did that. We haven't quite seen that yet. And the question is, will the Chinese stop and will President Trump carry through on his warnings? We got to remember, John, that the reason why there's this war in the first place is because China, through both direct and indirect means, transplanted its nuclear weapons program on Iranian soil. So, you know, this is something I think that the United States needs to talk about in public. And this is not just a Trump problem. His predecessors, going back to Bill Clinton, have known about what the Chinese have done to proliferate nuclear weapons tech to Iran and have said virtually nothing about it. So we need to start doing that because we're in a war over this. And the people in the world and the American people need to know why right now they do not.
- [34:25]
C
That's a great point, Gordon.
- [34:27]
B
How effective do you anticipate that this Board of Trade is going to be? It was obviously conceptualized by this administration months ago by Representative Jameson Greer. Do you think that it's something that is actually going to bring some stability on the trade front?
- [34:43]
A
You asked about trade. Yeah. Trade is one thing that I think that President Trump will walk away with. What is a win for the U.S. two things. First of all, I think that the trade truce will be extended. That's the virtually unanimous view, and that's probably right. That would be good for us. And also, there are going to be some sales of Boeings and other such items to the Chinese. That'll be good, too. I don't know if that's a structural change. I suspect it is not. The Chinese are very good at making their purchases further their political goals, and when their goals change, so do their buying habits. But at least for the moment, you know, Boeing will sell a few more planes to China, and things will be a little bit better in the US Economy for that.
- [35:31]
C
One of the amazing parts about this, Gordon, is that the carrot in the stick for the United States is really the same thing. It's access to American marketplace. Have we leveraged that enough to show China we're still the bigger guy on the block? It seems as though there was a lot of cordiality, even when she threw a fastball near our forehead. How do we send a message to China that we understand without our markets, you have no place to send your wares?
- [35:58]
A
Because President Trump should say, without our markets, you have no place to send your wares. We haven't said that Xi Jinping has turned his back on consumption as the basis of the Chinese economy. And that means he has no way to grow that economy except for exports. We are something, we Americans account for something, you know, 30, 31, 32 or so percent of global consumption, which means that Xi Jinping is just has no economy, which means he has no political system, which means he has no country if President Trump denies that market to him. And even though the Supreme Court has torpedoed the tariffs, Trump has a lot of other ways to keep Chinese products out of our country, including the prohibitions on the importation of goods that are made with forced labor. But there are other ways as well. And I think President Trump needs to say this in public because Xi Jinping said some pretty arrogant things while Trump was there next to him. And the president needs to push back. You can't say that Xi Jinping is your friend when he is saying those things in front of you. Just disrespecting not only President Trump, but disrespecting the United States.
- [37:11]
C
Gordon, as always, great to have you on the show. Thanks for such a great prescient update on such an important day. Always enjoy your insights. All right, folks, we're going to take a quick commercial break. More around the corner right after these messages.
- [37:36]
B
Welcome back, everybody. There has been such a huge focus on stopping waste, fraud and abuse in this second Trump administration. So joining us now is one of the folks who is absolutely central in helping to clean it up. He is the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Dr. Oz, thanks so much for being,
- [37:55]
E
I'm so honored to be with you. And this is a topic that animates everybody. I mean, Republicans always suspected there was fraud of this magnitude. Democrats feel embarrassed that it's gotten this bad and they don't know what happened to all the money they thought they were helping people with. So it's a great issue for us to drive home because it's hard to hide from the reality. We're losing $100 billion a year in my agency, Medicare and Medicaid. And if we just fix that, just give you an affordability context, it will double the life expectancy of the Medicare trust fund. So if you're out there working your tail off, hoping one day Medicare will be there for you to catch you in your older years, it'll double the life expectancy of that program. So you'll have it.
- [38:35]
C
Amazing.
- [38:35]
B
Amazing. And I think that, that, you know, when you talk about the affordability issue, young folks are going to hear that and they're Going to say, oh, folks, finally, thank goodness. There's going to be something there for me when I get older. But I want to focus in on this 800, this number of facilities that you shut down. It's very hard to surprise the vice president, but J.D. vance seemed positively shocked to learn, along with the rest of us, by the way, that you shut down 800 of these empty agencies, these empty companies, and not a single one called the government and said, hey, hello, this is an actual business. That. That is an astounding statistic.
- [39:09]
E
Well, it highlights the reality that the fraud had actually created such a deep corruption, such a deep rot in the system that when someone finally began to take action, they all scurried like rats into the corners. They never thought anybody would come after them. And I just want to make sure everyone understands what we're talking about. Hospice is this beautiful program created, you know, 40 years ago, designed to help people in their last days or months of life. They're dying of cancer. You trade in your regular insurance, Medicare, in order to get this extra benefit, but you don't have your old insurance anymore. So these scoundrels will steal people's numbers and without them knowing, put them on hospice, take away their regular insurance, take the money. Because they create these fake hospices and they have, you know, of course, I just said they're supposed to die while they're there. No one dies because they don't even know they're on hospice. They're not sick. Doctors sell their licenses, their reputations and their souls to dishonesty, claim these patients are actually sick when they're not. And this is generating billions and billions of dollars of fraud. Just those 800 hospices that we suspended payments to, they would have generated $1.4 billion in billing. Think about how much money that is going to. In this case, organized criminal endeavors, Russian mafia, much of it goes overseas. I mean, we caught one of these guys, just sentenced them. This is all done, by the way. U.S. attorney Billy Assailey, the DOJ, FBI. It's an all of government approach that the Vice President wants. These guys had stolen $58 million from taxpayers, had bought gold bullion. At least they know how to invest, put it in their suitcases, and they were fleeing back to their native country when we caught them. I mean, this is the kind of stuff you're dealing with. It's out of a movie.
- [40:55]
C
Yeah, it is. And you know, for a long time I think people thought, well, maybe it's just a flaw or a bug in the system, but it May seem to be a feature that there are some states that have just let this go on because it suits a political agenda. Why does a place like California, Minnesota have a blind eye to things that were obviously going on on their watch?
- [41:15]
E
The statement you just made is profoundly important. I do think it's a future for some of these states that switch to New York for a second New York state number one job in the entire state is a personal care service attendant. What does that mean? These are services that your family would do for you. Normally I carry the groceries upstairs, cook, take it to the doctor's office appointment, that kind of stuff. In New York state, we now pay people to do that for you. The person we're paying could be your son, the neighbor's son, your son could be helping them. You get the story. These are unlicensed people in undocumented, unsupervised settings provided services and we're paying for it. So they have gamed this terribly. 500,000 people are doing these jobs now. Number one jobs program in the state and this is the catch. When the governor of New York is seeing declining employment and they can get people employed by the federal government and disguise of personal care services, it's a winner. They don't have to pay unemployment. They get to take taxes on the money that these guys are getting paid. Here's the real kicker. You ready? The unions got permission to unionize these people even though they're getting money through Medicaid. Now the 1199 SEIU Union is collecting dues because everyone's getting unionized. That's been a double number of people in their union, by the way. And all that money they do is go back in political patronage to support the party in power. This is the deeper corruption that we're trying to stop. And if you don't get it at this phase, it's going to spread quickly to a lot of other states. And it's hard to get it back in the bag once it leaves.
- [42:50]
C
So important.
- [42:51]
B
So, Dr. Oz, once you clean up the mess, whether it is leering centers in Minnesota or hospice providers in California, what's the fix to allowing the good ones to be a part of this and the bad ones not? Is it human power? Is it more manpower, people being able to vet these, these companies or these, these agencies? Are these persons in person? Is it a money issue? How do you make sure it's clean going forward?
- [43:19]
E
Well, you cut off the head of the hydra in most of these instances. There are people at the top of the organized criminal endeavor who are getting all the big money, the smaller money, the doctors selling their souls, the low lives. Who are the named people on these accounts? Let's look at Florida, which again, this is not just a blue state issue. Florida, South Florida. You have more durable medical equipment suppliers, shipping wheelchairs and canes than McDonald's. I mean, it's impossible the Cuban government's involved. These people are. The companies are owned by Cuban construction workers who, you know, get paid 500 bucks to put their name on it. They flee back to Cuba when they were go after them. But the way we shut this down is by going after the money. And the money is fascinating because if you have Brenski accounting and we're working with treasury on this, you could actually trace the money and you know exactly where it's going. And that's who we're going after now. So we can actually stop payment. Number one rule of all, the money never leaves my building in health care anyway. Half of half the fraud in America in government is probably in health care fraud because it's so easy to do. It's such a big program. Our program is about $2 trillion. So foreign governments, organized criminal activities, low life Somalis, they all come after the federal benefits and health care because it's so easy to pierce it. All you need is the beneficiary number of any of the 170 million people that we serve. And so we'll be able to stop the money from leaving the building. When that happens, the fraudsters shift gears. They go, they're not going to go away. They're just going to go to another sector. They're going to try to defraud the banks or try to steal from gas stations, but they're not going to be stealing from the American people because remember, if they steal your money in health care, they will steal your life.
- [45:04]
C
Yeah, that's exactly right. They're literally depriving people of critical care. So I want to turn to one other thing you did. And there's so much innovation going on on your watch, inside your agency. But yesterday you announced, I think, one of the more transformative things that are going to happen in the health care industry, creating a standard for all major health insurers on how you get prior approval so you're not navigating a different maze and getting frustrated. You get the care you need when you need it because there's a common sense standard, a major innovation. How big is that going to affect the everyday consumer?
- [45:34]
E
Massive. The number one thing Americans complain about is having that precious discussion with a doctor within their office that you know some biopsy or test you need, and then the long arm of insurance with your sneaks in there, slides in there and stops you from getting a procedure that's important. And so we are now going to all the insurance companies we started last year, Kennedy, me. And you know, the president is great at this. He says, just ask them, use the power to convene. We're a strong government. You don't have to always make a law. Just go tell these people if they don't fix this themselves, you're going to come after them. So the big insurance companies got together and they figured out a way of avoiding all these ridiculous prior authorization where they quiz you, like I just described, about why you have to have this test. Now, the other side of the equation, which are the doctors and the medical record companies, they have to get on board as well. So yesterday we announced that those groups are coming on board, all the major hospitals, the companies that actually run the data in America. Because think about it. If an insurance company wants to know if you're eligible for a procedure, they don't have to talk to you or your doctor. The records that are being kept of your care will tell them that they should get it from there automatically, electronically, digitally, and never bother you or your doctor. And it should happen, boom, instantaneously, with no delay. That way the average person trying to get, you know, a mold biopsy to see if it's cancer doesn't have to wait six weeks. They can do it right there in the office.
- [46:58]
C
Amazing.
- [46:59]
B
Sarah, it is so obvious how poorly things were run before you came around bringing things. I mean, common sense. Yeah, common sense. And the transformation is amazing. Administrator for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Sir, thank you so much for being with us.
- [47:14]
E
God bless you both. Take care of.
- [47:16]
B
Same to you, sir. All right, everybody, stay tuned. We've got a few more things that we want to wrap up with Pretty Little Boat before we head out. Welcome back, everybody. All right, John, me, you and our producer all had the same thing in mind because we wanted to use this clip first. Kamala Harris, former vice president, keeps on giving and presidential candidate, of course, in 2024, is now calling for Democrats to hold a no bad idea brainstorm. It makes you wonder if that's how she came up with her 2024 platform. But, but check out this clip that we agree that it is right to have ethics rules for Supreme Court justices. And let's put those in place. Let's talk about statehood for Puerto Rico and D.C. these are the things I think that we've got to do. We've got to neutralize these red states from cheating, including blue states, expanding their maps. And all of this, I think, is, look, we gotta fight fire with fire. These folks are playing to win. You know, it's interesting, John, she says fight fire with fire. It's interesting to me because Democrats started this gerrymandering slash redistricting fight. Republicans, it appears, are just finishing it. And now all of a sudden, now that Democrats are losing at it, now it's bad. It's cheating. It's all those bad things.
- [48:46]
C
She fights fire with liar. I mean, she just makes up stuff. I mean, the Democrats picked this redistricting fight starting two decades ago. They're doing it. They're going to find out how much cheating has been going on. I think you heard James Comer at the top of the show talk about how they're going to expose another cheating scandal for Democrats. Yeah, it's just a real problem. Meantime, that disaster that she presided over called the border, the Biden border. Just a few minutes ago, the FBI announced that the highest ranking ever official in Trent Agua has been extradited from Colombia to the United States. He went by the code name Tookie. He is a bad hombre. I mean, a bad, bad dude. We got him. He's going to appear in a Houston courtroom. So we're still cleaning up her aisle on mess seven. Aisle on mess on aisle seven. But I think she is the greatest gift the Republicans have. They ought to just let her talk every day. Now, she also said there's no bad idea they're going to do. Stacking the Supreme Court, getting rid of the Electoral College and a couple other crazy ideas. Lilla, just keep saying that because you're going to drive Republican voters to the polls in record numbers.
- [49:51]
B
But, you know, if Democrats take over the Senate, unlike Majority Leader Thune, the first thing they will do is they will nuke the filibuster and they will shove all of that stuff down the throats of the American people if they possibly can. All right, so I'm going to have
- [50:03]
C
a note to John Thune, right?
- [50:05]
B
Yes, nudge, nudge. I'm going to have a wrap up out tomorrow on these continuing talks between President Trump and Xi Jinping. And President Trump went with a very large delegation, not only of governmental folks and people in his administration, but also also people on the private sector side. But Scott Besant was there and he spoke about his meeting with the Chinese vice premier. Check it out.
- [50:29]
A
The vice premier and I, who have a very good working relationship, I think we've seen each other. This was either our 8th or 9th meeting. Worked on the agenda for today's meeting in terms of the economics, the deliverables. And so we talked about purchase purchases. We talked about some issues that the Chinese side had. And we're going to talk about forming a board of trade for the bilateral trade between the US And China. And we're going to talk about a board of investment that will be responsible for investment in non sensitive areas.
- [51:10]
B
Harris were a huge part of that conversation. Looks like he had it under control. That's going to do it for us tonight. But we'll be back here tomorrow night at 6pm Eastern. Have a great one.