The Truth with Lisa Boothe: Inside the Minnesota Fraud Scandal with Joe Teirab

Summary

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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

The Truth with Lisa Boothe: Inside the Minnesota Fraud Scandal with Joe Teirab

Date: December 23, 2025
Host: Lisa Boothe
Guest: Joe Teirab, former federal prosecutor and Marine veteran

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deeply into the massive Minnesota child nutrition fraud scandal — the largest of its type in U.S. history — through the eyes of Joe Teirab, who prosecuted parts of the case. Host Lisa Boothe invites Teirab to unpack how the "Feeding Our Future" fraud exploded, why it went undetected for years, who enabled it, and the broader systemic and political failures behind the theft of billions in government funds. With frank insights and firsthand experience, Teirab exposes regulatory lapses, political interference, and the tricks used to siphon taxpayer money, while discussing how to prevent similar scandals in the future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Scope and Simplicity of the Fraud

[02:42–05:53]

• Massive scale: Fraud targeted the federal Child Nutrition Program, meant for hungry kids, exploiting a decentralized, poorly-supervised system.
• How it worked: “Feeding Our Future” acted as a fake watchdog, letting conspirators submit completely invented lists of children, fake purchase receipts, and made-up documentation to claim funds.
• Ease of fraud:

  “The big thing that jumped out to me was how easy this fraud was to do. I could do that in five minutes on a computer if I had absolutely no conscience.”
  — Joe Teirab [02:46]

• Failure of oversight: Lack of regulatory controls, especially during COVID, made fraud straightforward and virtually untraceable until too late.
• Magnitude:

  "Former acting U.S. attorney here in Minnesota, Joe Thompson, said the numbers on the magnitude of over $9 billion. Billion with a B. It's absolutely crazy."
  — Joe Teirab [05:30]

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2. Why Did It Go Undetected So Long?

[05:53–08:51]

• COVID loopholes: Relaxed auditing and suspension of physical site visits during the pandemic created a vacuum for theft.
• Bureaucratic incentives: Minnesota Department of Education officials were incentivized to look the other way, fearing political pushback.
• Weaponization of identity politics:

  “When they did actually end up putting up a smoke signal...What did Feeding Our Future do? Led by Amy Bach, they alleged racism... And that actually won the day for a while.”
  — Joe Teirab [06:43]

• Regulatory failure: Bureaucrats hesitated to flag irregularities over fear of being accused of discrimination.

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3. Political Connections & Lack of Accountability

[08:51–12:35]

• Direct links to political figures: Fraudsters held a documented meeting with Attorney General Keith Ellison, attempting to buy influence. Donations were made to Ellison, which he later returned, but only after alarms were raised.

  "They were trying to curry favor with Keith Ellison...We need to make sure we have an attorney general who’s fighting for us.”
  — Joe Teirab [09:20]

• Political protection: Teirab argues Democratic leadership prioritized not alienating Somali voters—an important bloc—over prosecuting fraud.

  “These folks knew about it...Keith Ellison knew about it, Walls knew about it, but they just didn't care to do much about it, maybe because, you know, that's a pretty important voting block for Democrats in Minnesota.”
  — Joe Teirab [22:41]

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4. The History and Dynamics of Fraud in Minnesota

[12:35–13:59]

• Longstanding fraud: Patterns of systemic fraud in state assistance programs predate this scandal, with whistleblowers ignored for years.
• Transitioning schemes: Similar methods have moved across sectors (childcare, nutrition, housing, disability assistance).
• Cultural and demographic factors: Tight-knit communities, honor-system-based state programs, and the absence of effective deterrents created an environment ripe for exploitation.

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5. Details of Stolen Funds and Criminal Acts

[16:43–19:09]

• Lavish spending: Fraudsters bought luxury homes, cars, and overseas properties.

  “He (Lebon Alishire) stole a bunch of money, over a million dollars...spent it on...a building complex in Kenya...fancy car and a new fancy house.”
  — Joe Teirab [16:59]

• Limited recovery: Only a small portion of money will ever be recovered.

  “We're not going to get probably 2% of that back. I mean, we're not going to get hardly any of it just all wasted. All wasted.”
  — Joe Teirab [18:50]

---

6. Ties to International Terrorism

[19:09–20:53]

• Allegations: Some stolen funds may have benefited terrorist group Al Shabaab, and Minnesota has a documented history of residents joining extremist groups overseas.

  “A lot of the money was stolen...and it did go to Al Shabaab...we're having all this money that was meant to go to Minnesotans in Minnesota and then it goes to a terrorist organization.”
  — Joe Teirab [19:25]

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7. The National Dimension & Political Fallout

[21:02–24:55]

• Other states at risk: Minnesota’s scandal likely isn’t unique; similar schemes may exist elsewhere, especially in one-party–controlled states.
• Ongoing investigation: Federal authorities have yet to charge the full scope—only a fraction of the stolen amount has been prosecuted.

  “There’s a lot more fraud yet to be charged...a lot more to happen, a lot more shoes to drop.”
  — Joe Teirab [23:50]

• Calls for accountability: Senior Democratic officials (including Ilhan Omar, Tim Walz, and Keith Ellison) are facing new scrutiny for their roles and prior knowledge.

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8. Reform Proposals

[26:08–27:46]

• Need for robust oversight:

  “We can’t expect, like I mentioned, some of these programs...but it’s just going to be so easy to defraud. There's got to be more checks and balances. There has to be more oversight and auditing.”
  — Joe Teirab [26:25]

• Data-driven monitoring: Compare program participation with population data; verify receipts and site operations.
• Empowering whistleblowers: Bureaucrats must feel safe flagging suspicious activity, without fear of political retribution.
• Guarding against false cries of racism: Oversight and race politics must be disentangled.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the ease of the fraud:

  “I could do that in five minutes on a computer if I had absolutely no conscience.”
  — Joe Teirab [02:46]

• On bureaucratic apathy and identity politics:

  “Claiming racism actually led to this not being uncovered for quite a while.”
  — Joe Teirab [07:35]

• On systemic issues:

  “Where there’s no virtue, you need virtue in a democracy. Unfortunately we just had a lot of folks who didn’t have any virtue here.”
  — Joe Teirab [13:39]

• On future risk:

  “There’s a lot more fraud yet to be charged...a lot more shoes to drop.”
  — Joe Teirab [23:50]

• On reforms:

  “You have to give [bureaucrats] the ability to actually shut off the money and you...have to make it so that, you know, fake claims of racism aren't going to stop that from happening.”
  — Joe Teirab [27:32]

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Key Timestamps

• 02:42: Introduction to the scandal and its scale
• 04:11: How the fraud worked technically
• 06:11: COVID and regulation rollback explanations
• 08:51: Explaining political connections and potential influence
• 12:35: Why Minnesota is especially susceptible
• 16:43: Examples of stolen money used for luxury and overseas purchases
• 18:04: Prospects for recovery of stolen funds
• 19:09: Discussion on possible links to Al Shabaab
• 21:02: Are other states at risk?
• 22:00: Response from political leaders, lack of accountability
• 23:50: Future charges and open questions
• 25:09: Could politicians be implicated?
• 26:25: Reforming oversight and protections against fraud

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Conclusion

Joe Teirab’s firsthand account spotlights a scandal enabled by broken oversight, politicized identity, and bureaucratic cowardice. While Minnesota’s fraud scandal is historic in scale, its lessons resonate nationwide as public funds flow ever-more rapidly with less scrutiny. Genuine reform — and honest, apolitical enforcement — are urgently needed to prevent more billions from vanishing unchallenged.

Transcript

[Joe Tarab]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Lisa Booth]

Guaranteed Human did you know?

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[Lisa Booth]

With Lisa Booth, where we get to the heart of the issues that matter to you today. We've got former federal prosecutor and Marine veteran Joe Tarab, who who investigated the Feeding Our Future this Minnesota fraud scandal that everyone's been talking about it. So he's gonna share his unique Frontline insight into how it exploded under Governor Tim Wallace of Minnesota. And he said this, this is how he put it. He said the big thing that jumped out to him was how easy this fraud was to do. I could do that in five minutes on a computer if I had absolutely no conscience. So how was it allowed to go on for so long? Why did politicians allow for it to go on for so long? Will they potentially get swept up in this investigation? So we're going to dig in with someone who has seen this case up close, who investigated, who prosecuted, who worked on this case. So stay tuned for more on the Minnesota fraud scandal. Joe, it's great to have you, you on the show. This Minnesota fraud scandal has been blowing up in the media and you had a front row seat to it. So appreciate you making the time.

[Joe Tarab]

Appreciate you having me on. Thanks a lot, Lisa.

[Lisa Booth]

So you said of this scandal that you were surprised at how easy this fraud was to do. You know, you could do that in five minutes on a computer if you had absolutely no conscience. Walk us through. Why was it so easy?

[Joe Tarab]

Well, there's a couple layers to that. I mean, stepping back 3,000 foot level, you had these massive government programs in Minnesota here with the federal child nutrition program. So money that was meant to go to feeding hungry kids either in after school programs or summer school programs. But you had a really stupid regulation, regulatory program to disperse it. You had this purported watchdog organization called Feeding Our Future. And they were purportedly this organization that was supposed to be helping to feed the hungry kids. Well, no one was watching this watchdog. And so basically they were getting kickbacks from different restaurants or other nonprofits to say that, oh, you're feeding all these kids, when in actuality these kids were just made up. They were phantoms. They were generating lists on kids that they were saying that they're feeding that just didn't even exist. They were generating these fake and false, you know, backstop PDFs to say that, oh, yeah, we're buying all this. This food for these kids, and it was just totally made up. And so in the same way that I can go on my computer, make up a PDF and saying that, you know, I bought a thousand pounds of chicken or 100 gallons of milk to feed kids that I'm not feeding, it's. It was all a lie. It was super, super easy. And so if you just had a government that cared about where our money's going, that wouldn't have happened, and we wouldn't be out literally billions of dollars. And that's the number that the former acting U.S. attorney here in Minnesota, Joe Thompson, said that the numbers on the magnitude of over $9 billion. Billion with a B. It's absolutely crazy.

[Lisa Booth]

You know, we've seen, you know, the conviction of feeding our future leader, Amy Bach and more than 50 guilty pleas. Why do you think it was allowed to go undetected for so many years? Or how do you think one undetected for so long?

[Joe Tarab]

So part of it was, you know, during COVID they just kind of removed a lot of the auditing and any kind of, you know, checks and balances on it. So, you know, initially, at least before COVID there was supposed to be some, you know, site visits, actual physical visits. Well, it kind of went out the window over Covid. So just kind of another reason how, you know, way in which Covid didn't help things at all, or COVID lockdowns, I should say. But then you had this really perverse incentive structure for regulators or bureaucrats in Minnesota. So the agency in Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Education, was supposed to be kind of overseeing this Feeding Our Future organization that itself was supposed to be overseeing other sites. And so you could see where things could get lost in translation. But these bureaucrats at the Minnesota Department of Education were incentivized to just look the other way because when they did actually end up putting up a smoke signal, saying, hey, there's some weird, funny business here. Like, there's. We're seeing exponential growth in these federal Child Nutrition Program funds being used when, like, there's not a massive growth in kids or massive growth in the need for this. When they put up that smoke signal. What did Feeding Our Future do? Led by Amy Bach, they alleged racism. They said to. To the court, they said, you guys are being racist for shutting off this money because we're feeding all these kids who are Somali or Somali descent. And that actually won the day for a while. And so literally, like a, you know, crying wolf and saying that. That just not having Money, a bunch of money, you know, being, being misspent and stolen is somehow racism actually led to this not being uncovered for, for, for quite a while.

[Lisa Booth]

But what does that say about the law that just the simple charge of, oh, you're being racist then prevented further investigation or charges at the time?

[Joe Tarab]

You know, I don't know exactly what, what it says about the law. I mean, it definitely says something really terrible about our politics. I mean, thankfully, we've just seen kind of the pendulum swing against Wokeism run amok. But what you had here in Minnesota, especially under, you know, Governor Tim Walls and Attorney General Keith Ellison, I mean, if you have the leaders at the top who are just talking about everything in terms of the lens of oppressor and oppressed, you're hanging things of that nature. It's definitely going to set up the sentence structure for people to feel a little bit more nervous about having lots of audits and background on organizations that might be spending money on people of Somali descent, for example. And so that's just a dangerous situation and it didn't work out well for the Minnesota taxpayer.

[Lisa Booth]

To what extent were Democrat politicians involved with some of these people? You know, were they getting kickbacks, were they getting donations? Did some of that potentially prevent further investigation?

[Joe Tarab]

Yeah, you had this meeting, I think it was December of 2021, it might be off in the year. But a few of these individuals met up with these fraudsters, these co conspirators with each other, met up with Keith Ellison, Attorney General, the person who's supposed to be upholding the law in Minnesota. And I think Keith Ellison, you know, he used to represent Minneapolis, United States Congress, the same district that now Ilhan Oma represents. Keith Ellison was, I think the deputy chair of the dnc. They, these fraudsters set up a meeting with Keith Ellison and this meeting was recorded and we actually have the recording. And they were trying to curry favor with Keith Ellison. They're, they were saying, you know, our money is very important and we can kind of choose who we donate to, but we need to make sure we have an attorney General who's fighting for us. And really just, I mean, you don't even have to look between the lines to see what they were trying to do. They were trying to get Keith Ellison to the extent that he was doing anything, which he really wasn't, like not put the spotlight on what's going on with this, these federal child nutrition funds and all this fraud that's happening in Minnesota. And so they donate a bunch of money to him. Now he'll say, oh, yeah, well, I gave it all back. Okay, fine, okay, you gave a bunch of it back. But why, why were they, the people feeling that they could donate money to you and curry favor to you? And so that's very concerning. And, and I, I would hope and wish that more people knew about that.

[Lisa Booth]

You know, at what point do you think, you know, because there were, you know, whistleblowers and auditors have raised concerns, you know, raised concerns years before arrests were made. You know, what point did state officials have enough information to stop this fraud?

[Joe Tarab]

Well, they definitely had it early enough. I remember there were, there were points at which it was that the, the state had this information. Keith Ellison, I remember, even in the heat of, I think it was a 2022 Attorney General race against a guy who, I happens to be a good friend of mine, Jim Schultz, running for attorney general in Minnesota. Keith Ellison was making statements during debates that were absolutely false, saying, oh, we were working hand in hand with the, you know, the federal regulators and federal prosecutors like myself and federal investigators. We were working hand in hand with them from, from the get go, you know. No, they weren't. They just weren't. And this has kind of been an open secret, unfortunately, in Minnesota that a lot of this fraud has been happening for many, many years. I mean, people have been calling this out since I think at least the year 2014. There's a lot of childcare fraud amongst folks mostly of Somali descent here in Minnesota running these childcare organizations that were either massively overbilling or just totally making up numbers, saying, yeah, we're actually providing childcare for all these kids, but it really wasn't happening. Well, a lot of this fraud is just kind of transformed over, over time, child care, but then it was feeding, you know, federal child nutrition program funds and then it was housing stabilization funds. You know, I've heard of interpretation interpreter fraud, autism fraud, saying, oh, we're running these autism clinics and helping kids. Well, no, you're actually not. They're just providing kickbacks to families to say that their kids had autism when they actually didn't. I mean, just so when you have all these government programs that are supposed to, you know, be helping people, but you set it up where it's just so easy to steal and so easy to, to falsify. And unfortunately, you can't do the honor system with folks who aren't honorable.

[Lisa Booth]

Why do you think Minnesota is more susceptible to fraud that is?

[Joe Tarab]

Well, is this going to say the million dollar question, but maybe actually the billion dollar question or the billions dollar question. Gosh, I wish I knew because it's really shameful. I mean, I'm proud of being a Minnesotan. I was born and raised here in Minnesota. I think we have statistically like the highest levels of like, education and we're healthy and we read and we're like, we're just, you know, we're pretty like connected state, you know, very proud about being a Minnesotan. But I think when you kind of have these big government set up aid programs in Minnesota, which very much kind of are based off the honor system in many ways and really they shouldn't be. I mean, things of the honor system are meant for a society where there's a lot of trust and you're not going to just have an infusion of people that might take advantage of it, unfortunately. And that's just kind of what, what we had. We had a bunch of people who were just willing to, to cheat the system. You know, where there's no virtue, you need virtue in a democracy. And unfortunately we just had a lot of folks who didn't have any virtue here. And you had Amy Bach running the whole thing. She's not of Somali descent herself, but you had lot of folks in this tight knit community and Somali people of Somali descent who are just willing to take advantage of the system. And it's not, you know, only people of Somali descent who are committing this kind of fraud. But here in Minnesota you just had that and it's just really, really hard to explain.

[Lisa Booth]

Got to take a quick commercial break. More on this Minnesota fraud scandal.

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[Lisa Booth]

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[Lisa Booth]

Of this money was spent on luxury homes, overseas travel. There was a lot of foreign transfer of money overseas as well. Kind of walk us through some of the more egregious examples that you saw in the way that this money was spent and the things it was spent on.

[Joe Tarab]

Yeah, when I was on the case and for some amount of time, my focus in the team was to focus on this cluster called the Jig Jigga Cluster. And that cluster surrounded three individuals. But one of the one of the individuals, his name is Lebon Alishire. He stole a bunch of money, over a million dollars. Can't exactly remember the exact amount, but he sent a bunch of the money and spent it on, you know, a building complex in Kenya. He bought a resort in Kenya. He bought, you know, fancy car and a new fancy house. All these things, you know. But people threw out this fraud scandal, bought tons of fancy cars and things. And it's not as if we should be a society where you're punishing people for doing well and buying things that you can afford. But when you're stealing government money and then buying fancy cars and fancy resorts, that's unacceptable. And people should be appalled by it.

[Lisa Booth]

I mean, they should be. You know, it's sad that it came to this. You know, how will taxpayers be able to recover the money at all? Or how much can be recovered at this point?

[Joe Tarab]

You know, a good chunk of the money has been, I guess, clawed back, if you will. Yeah, I know in the feeding our future fraud investigation and prosecution, that number that feeding our future was responsible FOR was about $250 million, at least in fraud. And I think we had clawed back or gotten back, I think over 70 billion of it. So you're never going to get back that much money because a lot of the money just went out the door. It was just stolen. It was bought with all these things that you're not going to get back. But the government can seize back boats, houses, cars, to extent that we can grab it and even some things like in foreign countries, if someone's willing to plead guilty and give that up. So it's definitely not enough. I mean, a lot of this money is just never going to get back. And especially with this number that Assistant U.S. attorney Joe Thompson mentioned recently, last week in a press conference, you know, $9 billion of this, of this money is just out the door. We're not going to get, you know, probably 2% of that back. I mean, we're not going to get hardly any of it just all wasted. All wasted.

[Lisa Booth]

You know, there was a report in the City Journal last month claiming that some of the money indirectly benefited Al Shabaab. Have you seen any evidence of that or how do you, what do you make of that and that allegation?

[Joe Tarab]

I mean, I think the, the evidence that the City Journal talked about was, I mean, not to use a pun here is self evident. I mean, the money did go to some of those organizations. Now, whether or not people here in Minnesota took the money from the government with the intent to give it to Al Shabab, it's hard to prove intent like that. I mean, but a lot of the money was stolen was illicitly gotten and it did go to El Shabab. And that's just like a really sad thing as well, that, wow, we're having all this money that was meant to go to Minnesotans in Minnesota and then it goes to a terrorist organization. It very much reminds me of I, I was in the Marine Corps for five years on active duty as a JAG officer and I deployed once to Iraq to help our effort on President Trump's effort to defeat and destroy isis. And my job as operational law attorney was to just give advice on our strikes against isis. And I remember seeing reports in that timeframe. This is like 2017, 2018. This is about how the one state that sent the most fighters, foreign fighters to fight for ISIS out of any state in our union was Minnesota. So it was just wild to me that Minnesota is sending all this money, or, sorry, at that time, all people to fight for isis. And now we're seeing all this money getting sent from what, what state? Minnesota. And, and unfortunately it's just because we have a lot of folks here who happen to be of, of Somali descent who are s sending this money over and it's really, really art of stomach.

[Lisa Booth]

Do you think this is happening in other states and it's just, you know, yet to be discovered or, you know, what does your gut tell you?

[Joe Tarab]

I think it is happening in other states. I mean, I think when you have one party rule or where you have a state, unfortunately here in Minnesota, where you've had Democrat control for a while, maybe people feel overconfident and they feel like they're just gonna, you can get a. Get away with it. So maybe to the extent that other states, you know, I've had, you know, more bipartisanship, I guess we'll say, like maybe it's just a little bit harder to do, but I'm sure it's happening in other states and I'm seeing more reports of that now. But somehow Minnesota was, was the worst of it, I, I think. Yeah, so it definitely is happening in other states.

[Lisa Booth]

It's interesting too. What did you make of sort of like the initial? I mean, obviously people, you know, have known about this for a while, but you know, we saw like Tim Walls and Keith Ellison get pressed a little bit more from the media, you know, sort of what do you make of their handling of this and sort of the excuses and really sort of like the lack of accountability anyone's taking.

[Joe Tarab]

Yeah, I mean, that's the big thing that Tim Walls likes to do is he likes to say that, oh yeah, you know, the buck stops with me and I'm the one, you know, responsible. But he'll just like kind of conveniently not actually take responsibility. And that's exactly what he's done here. Even he had a kind of a clapback, I guess you could say, to what Assistant U.S. attorney Joe Thompson. When Joe Thompson mentioned last week that he believed the fraud could, you know, be over $9 billion. I think Tim Walls said, well, you know, they can throw out numbers, but, and, and then refer to him taking responsibility. Well, no, he hasn't at all. And, and maybe he should have been doing more early on once it, it seemed clear that this kind of fraud was happening. I, I guess I mentioned it earlier, but I didn't even finish the point of saying that, like, it's been an open secret in Minnesota. This kind of fraud has been happening going back many, many years. And so these folks knew about it. Like Keith Ellison knew about it, Walls knew about it, but they just didn't care to do much about it, maybe because, you know, that's a pretty important voting block for Democrats in Minnesota. You know, Ilhan Omar isn't the congresswoman from the 5th district representing downtown Minneapolis for no reason. She's there. There's a very large Somali population. So maybe Keith Ellison and Tim Walls didn't want to be seen as being too anti Somali for whatever reason. I mean, even my former boss, former U.S. attorney Andy Luger, took a lot of hits, I think even from Ilhan Omar regarding his handling of prosecuting foreign fighters who were coming from Minnesota, going to the Middle east to fight for isis. And he was labeled as anti, you know, anti Somali, which is just a bunch of malarkey. And so definitely they've been not actually taking responsibility, and they should have been from the get go.

[Lisa Booth]

Do you think, I mean, in terms of where we are now with this story? Like, we're not done yet, right? Like you think things will continue to break or sort of. What's your perspective on where this story is heading?

[Joe Tarab]

I mean, look, if, if you, if Assistant U.S. attorney Joe Thompson is saying that the fraud is going over 9 billion, and right now, I think just the amount charged, I don't have the exact number, but it's nothing close to that. It might be, you know, around. It's, it's definitely above 250 million, but it's, it's below 1 billion. So somewhere in that range, there's a lot more fraud yet to be charged. I mean, that's just kind of what 9 billion is like the understanding of how much money was stolen, but that's not how much money has been charged right now. So there's a lot more to happen, a lot more shoes to drop. I think the questions that need to be answered is more specifically like, what did you know and when did you know it? I'm a part of Tim Walls and Keith Ellison and other leaders. What did you know and when did you know it? And we're going to see a lot more. I hope that the fraud isn't going to get too much bigger than what we've seen because I just, as a person who pays taxes, I want to know that my money is not absolutely wasted. I know it's like in many large ways wasted, but I, I, I hope there's a little, there's a cap on that.

[Lisa Booth]

So do you think any politicians could be swept up in this? As you mentioned, you'd want sort of, you know, Tim Wallace and Keith Ellison to be sort of further questioned and a little bit more investigative work in that regard. Do you think politicians could get swept up in this?

[Joe Tarab]

I mean, they could for sure get swept up into this in terms of, you know, what did they do when, when they learned various pieces of information. I mean, Ilhan Omar as well, what did she know? And so, yeah, I mean, as I know, Chairman Comer, I think of the House Oversight Committee is conducting an investigation right now. I know that more questions are going to be asked. People are soon going to have to be put under oath and are going to have to be telling the truth about what happened. Even this meeting with Keith Ellison a couple years ago where various fraudsters were attempting to curry favor with Keith Ellison. Like, what happened there? Like, was, did they try to give him any money, you know, to curry any favor? Like what, what else happened? What other promises were made? We need to know the answers to these questions because these are people who are currently in charge and are currently supposed to be, you know, handling our money well. And, and clearly they're not.

[Lisa Booth]

No. And that's what really infuriates a lot of Americans. You know, before we go, are there guardrails we can put in place to prot. Taxpayer money in these instances? Like sort of, what sort of reforms do you think we could do? And having sort of seen this up close.

[Joe Tarab]

Yeah, I mean, we, this needs to be more checks and balances. We can't expect, like I mentioned, some of these programs, we even have a new one coming up in Minnesota, this paid family medical leave. But it's just going to be so easy to defraud. There's got to be more checks and balances. There has to be more oversight and auditing. Honestly, you just like, we're not saying that the government spending should go down to zero, but if there is any government spending or government programs or helping folks who are in need, you need to make sure that there's some teeth in auditing and teeth in the way that you make sure that the money's going to the right places. You can't have situations where, for example, a person is saying that they're feeding 2,000 kids in a certain town when there's actually the town has a population of 1,000 people, which is not the exact numbers. But that's actually what happened in Minnesota, where things were totally off kilter and didn't make any sense. And then you have to have the ability to have bureaucrats who do have some honor, who do raise the flag and say something's going on here. You have to give them the ability to actually shut off the money and you and you have to make it so that, you know, fake claims of racism aren't going to stop that from happening.

[Lisa Booth]

Joe, appreciate your time and appreciate your service both as a federal prosecutor and also as a Marine.

[Joe Tarab]

I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Lisa.

[Lisa Booth]

Thanks, Joe. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, that was Joe Tara. Appreciate him for making the time. Appreciate you guys at home for listening. Everybody, Tuesday and Thursday, where you can listen throughout the week. I also want to thank our producer John Casio for putting the show together. Until next time.

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[Lisa Booth]

Guaranteed human.