← The Tony Kinnett Cast
The Tony Kinnett Cast
Ep. 531 - Just ONE YEAR in Prison for $250 Million in Somali Fraud, "No Kings" Rallies Backfire
01:27:10
National outrage over Feeding Our Future defendant Abdul Abubakar Ali's sentencing: one year and one day in prison for over $250 million stolen from taxpayers in one of Minnesota's rampant fraud scandals.
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Tony Kennett
It's tax season and at Lifelock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money and refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it, guaranteed.
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Scott Besant
One last big number.
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Tony Kennett
Save up to 40% your first year.
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Scott Besant
Visit lifelock.com podcast for the threats you can't control.
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Tony Kennett
Terms apply. Tony Kennett. Tony Kennett.
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Scott Besant
Tony Kennett.
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Reporter/Interviewer
Tony Kennett.
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Tony Kennett
Tony Kennett. Tony Kennett. Tony Kennett, Host of the Tony Kennett cast. Let's get down to business. You're listening to the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIBC on CYTV, here on the Daily Signal. Good evening and welcome to the Tony Knittcast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93. We begin with a rather rough point of outrage, at least on the sentencing side of crime up in Minnesota. Feeding our future defendant Abdul Abubakar ali after committing $250 million worth of fraud. Again participating in the fraud scheme in which he swiped a quarter of a billion dollars in the government grant funded Feeding Our future Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme. The man taking money, taking massive checks from who? From taxpayers, from local grantees, from those who had donated to a huge program that was supposed to be putting money in the mouths of Minnesota children. Well instead it ended up putting money in his and his co conspirators pocket. Now if you're watching the live stream in Eden Prairie, I'm talking about this dude. Now this guy collected all of these very nice large checks for the Feeding Our Future fund. He was sentenced today. Again, remember he was arrested and Tim Walls and Keith Ellison made this huge hubbub about how they had been the ones to bring him to justice. And we are the buck stops with me kind of rhetoric from Tim Walls. Well now according to local media who first ran the story again, you know, having their reporters outside the courtroom, he has been given for his total sentencing one year and one day in prison. So as a reminder, this man was one of the core individuals who stole a quarter of a billion dollars. And for his quarter of a billion dollars in fraud, he was sentenced with one year and one day in prison. Now this subsection of the article here is truly astounding. Says remarkably, both the government and the defense advocated that that Abdul Abubakar Ali receive a probationary sentence. Why? Why does the state of Minnesota. Why do the defense obviously advocate. He gets, you know, a little probation, little, you know, slap on the wrist for his quarter of a billion dollars in fraud. Well, because it's noting Ali has taken responsibility for his actions and he's given valuable information, valuable information to investigators. And he has paid now again, $250 million.
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Scott Besant
Right.
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Tony Kennett
What has he paid in restitution? $92,500. Yeah, 92. 5. So he steals $250 million, he pays back $92,500, and then, and then you see, well, after paying, like less than a percentage back then, he gets a year and a day in prison. That sounds like a pretty decent trade to me. That, that mean, hey, that doesn't sound bad. Look how smug this guy is as he's walking out of his sentencing. Look at him, he's. He's so pleased with himself as he walks away after participating in. I gotta say, I'd spend a year in prison for a quarter of a billion dollars. Who wouldn't? Now, the U.S. treasury has issued an advisory today urging financial institutions of all sorts, shapes and sizes to guard against fraud schemes targeting Medicare and Medicaid. So Dallas Express covering this particular article says that the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced the action on March 30. In support of President Trump's pledge to combat fraud, FinCEN proposed a rule to pay whistleblowers for tips on illicit financial activity. So if you. Essentially, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network released a kind of a dual statement. Part number one of the statement warns all of these various state networks, if you are receiving money or you have someone that is giving you a bill to pay from one of these NGOs or two, these non government organization, nonprofit donor bodies, you need to flag who this organization is run by, what networks they have, what are the end points for the finances in your state? Because it just so happened, I know, crazy. It just so happens that a lot of these NGOs are getting tons and tons and tons of cash. And then after getting tons and tons and tons of cash, they are sending that money out of the country. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made it clear that this is why now from the State Department, all foreign aid dollars of any sort from the United States that have been approved by Congress are not going to any non governmental organizations. They're not going to the ones organized by vice over in Switzerland, who funds a lot of nonprofit media outlets here in the United States. Not going over to the Chinese code pink super funder and not going to George Soros. Based NGOs. Here's the Secretary of State,
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Marco Rubio
here's in helping with health strategies all across the world. What we learned over time, and especially after coming here, is, is that oftentimes, and I'm oversimplifying it, but this is an accurate description, what would happen is we would go to a country and say, we're going to help you with our healthcare needs. Then we would drive over to western Northern Virginia somewhere, find an ngo, one of these organizations, give them all the money, tell them, go to this country and do their healthcare program for them. That NGO would then take about some percentage of that money for their overhead and administrative costs. And by the time it got down to it, the, the host country had very little influence. It was sort of imposed on them. And only a percentage of the overall money ever actually reached the patients and the people on the ground that we were trying to help because of these costs. This makes no sense. So why are we hiring American and international NGOs to go into other countries and run healthcare systems that are parallel and sometimes in conflict with the healthcare systems of the host country?
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Tony Kennett
Now, this is a, this is a pretty substantial criticism from the Secretary of State here, and it ties into all of these local NGOs and organizations who want to get rich, who want to get wealthy by taking money from the government to do perhaps anything. I mean, it could be for going to the federal government and, and seeking help to fund immigration. We're going to talk about again, the horrific perils of that here in just a couple of minutes. Again talking about sentencing three illegal aliens from Guatemala. We'll get to that here in a couple of minutes. They can go again. We see this not just with secular organizations and NGOs, but also Catholic and Lutheran, specifically organizations that spend all of their time and all of their money going after these foreign dollars. Maybe they go to the foreign country and they say, oh, hey, we're throwing all of this money and we're doing all of this really good work. You need to give us more money. And it's, it is laden, it is rife with all of this fraud that bring about very negative impacts to American citizens, to put it lightly. Negative impacts, meaning they are then not only have their money taken and stolen from them, not only do they have their local communities overrun, especially in the cases of migrant import, with, with fraud, with rape, with murder. This is one of the reasons why Secretary of State Rubio is making it clear that from now on we are cutting out these billionaire law leftist middlemen.
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Marco Rubio
If we're trying to help countries, help the country, don't help the NGO to go in and find a new line of business. And so that's what the model that we're breaking. We're not doing this anymore. We are not going to spend billions of dollars funding the NGO industrial complex while close and important partners like Kenya are either have no role to play or have very little influence over how healthcare money is being spent. Bottom line is if you want to help a country, work with that country.
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Tony Kennett
Now that brings us over to, again, some of the consequences that do so often occur when you allow these NGOs that are funded all far and afield over the world to come in and essentially lobby all of the taxpayer dollars that you make into mass import schemes. For example, like three illegal aliens from Guatemala who were all released into the United States under the Biden administration, who were endorsed, who were worked alongside, their release into the United States was supported by the left leaning and far left wing, that whole spectrum of NGOs that advocate on open borders and friendship and hugs and, you know, wonderful, good, happy, warm feelings. Three of these individuals, these illegal aliens from Guatemala, all released into the United States have now been found guilty of kidnapping, torturing and murdering a man on Long Island.
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Reporter/Interviewer
Many such cases just into our newsroom this afternoon. These three men will spend the next quarter of a century behind bars for killing an Amityville man. The Suffolk DA says the three now
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Tony Kennett
don't you worry, don't you worry because they've just been charged and the sentence that's following here after their, excuse me, after they're, they're charging and they're sentencing. They've just been sentenced. They are now getting appeals already to shorten their sentences, if possible, on parole. So they've been sentenced to a quarter century here. But don't you worry, the appeals process is already fully under swing here.
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Reporter/Interviewer
Men beat Juan Carlos Diaz Geronimo back in 2024, forced him into the trunk of a car and dumped his body in Farmingdale. Gustavo Hernandez and his nephews, Walter Ramirez Geronimo and Wilson Ramirez Geronimo pled guilty to manslaughter. They were each sentenced to 25 years in prison.
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Tony Kennett
It's a significant issue that brings us to far more to cover. RADIO crew, we're going to send you over to the commercial break. We're going to continue over here on the live stream. It's the Tony Knitcast here on the Daily Signal. Now, the federal government is actually trying to do a couple of things here. This is remaining largely underreported Although the kind of legacy corporate media is already framing this as though Scott Besant is corruptly trying to give a bunch of money to Nick Shirley or whatever. But Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has launched a new program with the Federal Reserve. This would be part two of the Treasury Department's announcement that will plan on rewarding those who tip off and who whistleblow regarding fraudulent spending with these government programs and these non governmental programs, these NGOs, up to 30% of the fines imposed on criminals attempting to bleed U.S. taxpayers dry. That's how the New York Post phrased it. Here's Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant announcing this program.
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Scott Besant
We are encouraging whistleblowers who know about fraud, people who are stealing from the American taxpayer, to come forward at Treasury. We're setting up a website and we will be giving rewards up to 10 to 30% of the fines that we levy.
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Tony Kennett
And it's not just for reporters, you know, like the independent creators that are out there, you know, looking at daycares that may not be fraudulent or semi trucking companies that may just be shell companies. But this includes those who are considered rather prominent human rights leaders in San Francisco. Very, very prominent Democrats. According to the New York Post today, the powerful human rights chief who led San Francisco to defund the cops, well, you know, she had a pretty spectacular fall from grace, you know, like the rest of the BLM leadership and the nonprofit organizations on the left which fleece millions, hundreds of millions of dollars from you, the taxpayer. Cheryl Davis, the former head of San Francisco's Human Rights Commission, you know, those with the equal sign bumper stickers and flags and the yard signs, no human is illegal. And it's just wonder if I could have a paraplegic immigrant gay person that would just be the best. Like that kind of weird people that assigned value points based on how different you are from a straight white man. I guess that organization, her associate. So Cheryl Davis and her associate James Spinola were arrested on March 30, 2026 on felony charges related to the alleged misuse of public funds tied to a city program. So in case you're counting at home, that would be misappropriations of public funds. And, and then of course, they were asked about it. And you know what happened when they were asked about it? They lied. So that includes a perjury charge, the daily double. And if you're misusing funds and you're likely, you know, then you lie about it, what are you misusing those funds for? Well, they were enriching themselves. So that's a triple conflict of interest in government contracts. And then last but not least, my favorite felony, self dealing with, which is essentially embezzlement for those who don't know how to embezzle. Self dealing just. I'll take the money, give it to me. When you embezzle, one would, one would, one would hope that if you are smart enough to embezzle without getting caught, this individual does not apply, that you would embezzle the funds in a way where you then launder the money so that by the time it gets to you, it's at least gone through a Catholic immigration NGO or something. Am I right? And then you're not, you're not just like writing yourself checks with the city's checkbook. But anyway, so good old Cheryl Davis and James Spinola on the other side of the coast, Zoran Mandani has rolled out a $2.3 million daycare pilot. So Mandani is opening up state run daycares. So, you know, stand aside state run grocery stores. Now it's time for state run daycares for New York City workers. And they are paying $60,000 per child. Now to keep this clear, a normal daycare expense in New York City is supposed to be between 10 and $15,000 per child annually. So New York City has decided that to cut the cost of childcare, not only is it going to be free, they're going to charge four to five times what it would cost annually per child just for city workers. Well, I'm sure that program is very above board. We have to get the radio crew back from commercial. Don't go anywhere. Tons to talk about tonight on the news site. It's the Tony Knittcast. Here on the Daily Signal, The Tony Kenneth cast on 93 WIBC. Welcome back to the Tony Knittcast here on the Daily Signal. If you like the show so far, hey, maybe you're listening, maybe you're watching on your own TV. Head over to YouTube.com daily signal, throw a like on the video there. If you're watching the live stream, throwing a like really helps us out. We really do appreciate it and you really should subscribe because we show you some of the best breaking nonsense that really leaves you with a bit of a stomachache. Maybe you've, you've been eating too good lately. Maybe you're feeling things are pretty good. Well, don't worry because I'm sure over the weekend you like a lot of people heard that there were some of the weirdest looking individuals that scampered out into the streets to hold yet another no Kings protest. Now, this no Kings protest was just like the last one, except nothing at all was different. I mean, I. Well, maybe that's. That's not quite true. It got more violent. You know, there were individuals out in Los Angeles that were. And I think it was Los Angeles, not San Diego, that. Oh, excuse me, yes, Los Angeles, that got together to chuck, you know, pieces of concrete at a federal building, you know, attempting to assault federal agents. So, you know, really, really, really good stuff. Also, getting out there to spray paint the sides of buildings, you know, kill your local ice agent. It's exciting stuff. I mean, hey, you know, normal hinged people, normal sane people getting out there and doing the, you know, threatening to kill federal officials. It's exciting. It's good time, good family fun. I say so. You know, throwing concrete at federal buildings, getting out there. Tulio Rosas, good friend of the program, was out recording a lot of this stuff. We have to keep the audio a little low because a lot of the words that they're using when they're out there protesting Kings, they have the Palestinian and then also some Iranian flags out there in the kafiyeh, and they're out there celebrating the importance of no kingliness. That kind of nonsense. So a lot of throwing rocks, chucking them at federal buildings in masks. Brave, stunning. That's so brave and powerful. Oh, wow. Now, the media covered this a little differently. So, for example, how did CBS News cover this? They said these protesters, they gathered. Sorry, I'll say it. As the. As the tweet says it, quote, protesters in San Francisco, California, gathered at a beach. Oh. To join the no Kings protest against the Trump administration on Saturday, forming a giant human sign that read Trump must go Now. Now they're trying to make this seem as though this is the most incredible, super duper wow. No one's ever done anything like this. At the last no Kings protest, the exact same story was run, the exact same one that people got together on a beach in San Francisco to make a large human sign. We have just done this a couple of months ago. We're treating this as though it is some. Wow. Extremely exciting, amazing stuff. And when I tell you they have nothing new here, they are pulling the oldest material that they have, like the Handmaid's Tale thing, which is a liberal fetish about being bred by, like, government officials. Very creepy, weird kind of stuff. Well, they're trotting that out again. They get out, the ladies in the red robes, and they're holding names in their Red robes again. The Handmaid's Tale series is about this fictional dystopian society where the government gives conservative ish guys the right to for like rape and breed women. And so to protest and totally not fetishize their little protest. They're carrying names of men who I guess they want to carry their illegitimate children. I don't know. Leftist women protesting stuff is just really weird to me. So they're trotting that out again. Okay, I know, exciting, exciting. But the best part were the speeches because see, Congress is not actually in session. They're sort of in session. See, they're adjourned. They're not actually on recess. They're, they're in a little sort of pseudo Schrodinger's recess right now. Because the Department of Homeland Security is currently not funded and Americans are very, very upset at the lines of the Department of, excuse me, the Transportation, the Travel Security Administration, tsa. They're upset at the lines at the airport. They're upset that a lot of core American businesses are not protected amid a series of terror attacks. That there are certain things that aren't being investigated. Of course the Coast Guard, FEMA currently not able to do its full capacity work. And so what do we have a bunch of officials out there to do? Well, they're out there to give you great, incredible, heartwarming speeches about transgenderism and about how they're super duper great. Like Ilhan Omar telling you about terrorism. Because you know that's something Ilhan Omar has very intimate experience with.
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Munay Rahimi
And we know that what Trump calls strength is his. And his idea of liberating women in
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Tony Kennett
Iran is to bomb and murder school children.
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Munay Rahimi
Uh huh.
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Tony Kennett
Now again, Ilhan Omar, who has never once criticized the child marriage practices in these Islamic regimes, who has never not once criticized the Iranian regime's slaughter of 35 to 50,000 protesters. All of a sudden, all of a sudden she wants to again cast the vision that see what kings do is they, they target this kind of spaghetti brained nonsense that they believe is doing something. Now I've asked a couple of Democratic officials off the record, I gave them the off the record kind of pass the on background pass so they didn't have to give me their names. What they believed was the point of all of these huge, exciting no Kings protests. Not joking, not a single one of them told me the same thing. Not single one guy. Over in the Minnesota side of the Democratic Farmer Laborers Union Party, the Indiana Democrat official, the California Democrat official, and my source on the inside of the National DNC neither. None of them could tell me what they thought was the actual purpose, what was going to be accomplished by these no Kings protests. So we might as well just, you know, start whipping out random examples. And speaking of whipping things out, this dude who thinks he's a girl, um, Minnesota State Representative Lei Finky, a man pretending to be a gal, um, he's demanding liberation for trans illegal immigrants or something. Here you go. I'm a state representative. I work here along with my colleague Shelly Buck in the Minnesota House of Representatives. I'm here to provide a little trans representation. Trans representation. But I'm also here to demand our trans liberation. Liberation. Oh, boy. And I'm here to demand our liberation for everyone. I don't mean only queer and trans liberation, but all of ours. I love it when they start listing the different types of the LGBTQ whatever. Because no one's ever quite able to explain the difference between the trans and the queer and the bi and the pansexual. Essentially all the different words that mean you like other genders than the one that you're biologically set to, but you're not going to get anyway. It's all about the liberation and the Marxisty good whatever nonsense. So anyway, we'll let dude in a skirt. Continue. Great. Refugees, undocumented neighbors, our friends with disabilities, our indigenous tribal nations, everyone. Full equality, full inclusion, full stop. It's brave. It's so exciting. Are you. Are you. Are you feeling the excitement here?
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Munay Rahimi
Ooh.
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Tony Kennett
I mean, just. Man just revs up the. Again, just listing out a bunch of different random words to suggest as though Donald Trump is a king and he's oppressing all of these groups. He's like, all right, let me see. I got a lot of minorities. Obviously, everyone knows that the one thing that that disabled people and the. The Indians and the blacks and the trannies all have in common is that I hate em. Okay. I mean, sure. I. Good luck with this. To you, radio crew. We're gonna let you go to commercial. Um, I. I know it was exciting. You're gonna have a hard time keeping down your enthusiasm. We'll see you in a second. Continue on the live stream. It's the Tony Knittcast here on the Daily Signal. Now hold down such enthusiasm because there actually were a couple of interesting things to point out to you from this particular event. First and foremost, in Florida, Hernando County Democratic Party chair Brian Stewart was arrested on Saturday. Why? You know, cuz he committed a simple battery charge, by which I mean he shoved, allegedly, a permanently disabled Military veteran and struck him in the head with a megaphone, you know, to stand up for equality and stuff. That's exciting. So really, really thrilling information there. And then, of course, Tim Wallace, we're talking about all of this fraud. Tim Wallace, he's out there to save us all. He's been bragging about how he's. He's just another guy out there fighting fraud. He did all of the arresting. Well, he has a word to say about this kind of radical behavior. See, he's been radicalized. They call us radicals. I see that. I see that. The president said it's a bunch of radicals. You damn right. We've been radicalized. Radicalized by compassion, radicalized by decency, radicalized by due process. Oh, it's so exciting.
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Scott Besant
Oh, brother.
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Tony Kennett
This guy stinks. No, no, he's. He's been radicalized by love and hugs and friendship. He just starts listing the different Care Bears. He's been radicalized by them like Hezbollah by Care Bears. It's. It's exciting. Radicalized by democracy and radicalized to do all we can to a poor oppose authoritarianism. Again, this is the guy. Mr. Radicalized Against Authoritarianism was the one who sent the Minnesota National Guard down the street. No, no, no, no. Not to, you know, combat those who were committing arson, those who were looting, those who were threatening other people in Minnesota. No, no, no, no. He sent the National Guard through the streets of Minnesota to make sure they were staying inside during COVID you know, Mr. Super Anti Authoritarianism. And then he'll turn around after events like these and he'll brag that he's going after fraud while individuals in his own state, who, by the way, he made sure, were brought up on state charges as well here, made sure that individuals in this major Somali fraud scheme, you know, were let off the hook with, you know, maybe a year and a day in prison because of the judges that he endorsed in those particular instances. So, again, really, really exciting stuff. On the flip side, this brings us over to some Congressionals and Congress. They got a little into this as well, you know, because again, they're not actually going to be there doing their job. They're not actually going to come back from any kind of pseudo recess, adjournment, kind of gray area here that matters. We'll talk about that likely a little more tomorrow with our producer Josiah, on why it is they're not quite going to recess in the Senate and they're only doing this sort of adjournment. But you got, you know, Adam Schiff out there he's hey, we're the no Kings, the not now, not ever taking the selfies. Oh, it's so important. Oh, it's so amazing. I'm covering this one kind of because I have to because it sort of is an event according to all of the polling data that we have, according to the momentum in the, for example, the generic congressional ballot heading into the midterm. This isn't doing anything. It's not actually doing anything. Now we'll get to a little bit more on that with fantastic vice president over on the economic side from the Independent Women's Forum because there was this whole whining lecture about how black women were supposed to stay inside according to the no Kings protesters. We'll have to catch that in a bit because still at the moment you have the House of Representatives before this magical Senate pseudo adjournment kind of recess, they sent over a clean funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security just to clean, hey, next 60 days, we're going to fund it. And then you had a bunch of Democrats that lined up for their little Sunday media hits and shows to brag about how Republicans are evil. And when the media, that being cnn, you know, the CBS Sunday show all the way over to NBC, Meet the Press, when they were asked these Democrat officials in Congress, Senators and representatives about, for example, Donald Trump signing an executive order to pay the Transportation Security Administration agents, the tsa, when they asked about the funding bill that the House of Representatives put through, all of a sudden you had some very, very awkward deer in the headlights moments. So what you've basically began the week because Sunday shows are the thing that kind of sets the stage for the political action here. But a bunch of Democrats that left to go stand in no Kings protest nonsense. And yeah, you had Republicans like Lindsey Graham headed down to Florida. And that's another ball of wax that I, of course we'll get to. We're going to talk about this with the crew over on the radio side. Don't go anywhere. It's the Tony Knitt cast here on the Daily Signal. It's the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WYPC. It's not a good use of your time to get in front of the media after you've walked out of Congress again right before Easter, huge lines at TSA right before a very, very serious line of outrage at Congress for not funding the Department of Homeland Security. So then get up on media where you should be safe. You know, Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, he should be safe when he gets up in front on legacy media interviews. He should be good to go. You really shouldn't be getting completely roasted anywhere and everywhere. And the Democrats have essentially made this their line. It's not a good sign when the congressional ballot is narrowing. Democrats lead is shrinking away again at a time when voters aren't particularly thrilled about gas prices. They're not thrilled about the way that Congress is completely garbling the Department of Homeland Security shutdown. It's not really a good look for your party to waltz onto legacy media and get hugely embarrassed. Here's Representative Gregory Meeks of New York's fifth Congressional having just that happen to him. Well, what we just heard from that
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Reporter/Interviewer
TSA union rep is the person standing up for those hardworking American workers is the President. With that executive action that he took at the end of the week, they're now getting new money into their bank accounts for finally again, are you thankful that he did take that action?
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Scott Besant
Well look, the president, if he's been saying for a while that he could have taken some actions so that would have never had this issue.
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Tony Kennett
He uh huh. Okay, simple question. Hey, are you glad that Trump, you know, pushed through an EO to pay TSA while you guys are hashing this out? Meeks won't answer the question. Now normally, you know, when you have an individual like this on the network, for example, you kind of let him go, you say all right, you're not going to answer that question. You move on. We have a limited amount of time. Not quite what happens here could have
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Scott Besant
told Johnson make the deal, but he did not.
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Reporter/Interviewer
He is the one who actually did take action, not the Congress so far. Do you support and are you thankful that he did take action? When you're saying that the hard working American worker of TSA have been the
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Tony Kennett
people caught in the middle,
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Scott Besant
the president, this they should have never, you know, you heard that age.
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Tony Kennett
Okay. If you ever begin. So a little bit of an insider track here. During the day. I'm the national correspondent for the Daily Signal. I do media interviews all the live long dang day. When you get into a position where and often if I'm paneling on the other side. So you have the host in the middle, you have the person on the left. I'm the one that's on the right side of the screen. When I hear my opponent on the left side of the aisle begin their answer to the question with four or five open prepositions, four or five open clauses, they don't resolve. Well I, you see and you can almost hear the spirit of Joe Biden going, look, trying to figure this out. The President of the United States said, all right, you're not going to pay tsa. I'll pay him myself for right now until you get the bill in front of me. He can't answer that. He's saying the President needs to do something because Congress is enacting. She says, well, the President did something. Well, what do you say to that? And the man looks about as nervous and as a straight man at a no Kings rally, hardworking American worker of
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Reporter/Interviewer
TSA have been the people caught in the middle.
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Scott Besant
The President, this they should have never, you know, you heard that agent talk about how they were in debt, the number of, you know, extra interest and penalties, et cetera. That should have never happened. And the President could have prevented that from happening.
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Tony Kennett
Uh huh. Exciting stuff. Thrilling. Good luck to you with that. And this brings us over to some of the other Democrats who are losing it. Democrat Representative Jim Heinz, for example, on CBS with Margaret Brennan. Again, Margaret Brennan's not usually the person who you think of bringing forward a little bit of fire before the feet. Democrat Representative Jim Heinz loses it in anger that the President of the United States is paying TSA workers right before the biggest travel season of the springtime.
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Reporter/Interviewer
What did Democrats get out of this standoff?
- [33:49]
Tony Kennett
Yeah, well, Margaret, that standoff is not done yet. Right. The President is illegally paying, apparently TSA agents. What did I tell you? What did I tell you was gonna happen? I said as soon as the President signs some kind of executive order to pay TSA out of some emergency funds. Because again, when TSA is not working, that constitutes a national emergency is one of the few times the national emergency from the executive makes sense. Why? Because one of the three main veins of transportation that our country's infrastructure rests on would be air travel. Don't make me get out the planes, trains and automobile book. Again. It kind of matters to have all of America's air traffic paralyzed because of a funding issue. So I mean, you know, one might not go after paying TSA workers in a genuine. Like for example, if there was a huge natural disaster as there have been before, and President Joe Biden kind of intervened to make sure that FEMA had a little extra cash on hand. Now, sure, you know, you had FEMA officials embezzling said money and, you know, that brings us over to a certain Democrat representative who's in a little bit of trouble. Aside from that, Republicans weren't out there going, how could Biden illegally give money to fema? That's Not a very wise move to say. You have Democrat Representative Jim Hines, of course, from, from Connecticut, the state where officials chew on their own elbows saying, well, Trump is being super illegal. How dare he pay tsa, apparently, TSA agents, you had the Senate, as you pointed out with Mr. Homan, pass a bipartisan bill unanimously in the United States Senate to say not passed unanimously. No, no, no, no. Look, let's fund everybody else and let's deal with this thorny issue about ice. And then you had the Republican House say, hell no, we're not doing that. So the reason that the House said, and I quote, hell no, we're not doing that, end quote, is because the Senate did not unanimously pass some magical piece of legislation to fund everything but ice. There was a five person voice vote at 2:30 in the bleeping morning in which three Republicans and two Democrats forwarded this little magical message, wrapped it up in a box and sent it over to the House, who promptly said, yeah, I'm sorry, that's going to be a from me. So Democrats can try this game. They can trot it out, they can shine it up as finely as they can. That's not even the worst meltdown of the day. The worst meltdowns of the day go to Eric Swalwell and Chris Van Hollen. So you do have, you do have to see these, unfortunately. So first of all, Chris Van Hollen, we have been clear. We're not going to fund a lawless ICE operation. And we've insisted on significant reforms, reforms that the Trump administration has refused to make. And now again, wait a minute here. I thought there was just this big unanimous agreement and he's talking about all of these reforms. A clean funding bill that would fund everything but ice, that was put forward initially as a stopgap measure. The Senate won't even hear you don't even have Chris Van Hollen saying, hey, we need to get back in. Right now we're in this weird pseudo recess kind of, of, kind of adjournment. We need to get back there right now. No, no, no. Because Democrat senators, they don't care. They have appearances at no Kings rallies to make. So we're not going to provide ICE another $10 billion to continue their lawless activities. But as you know, Republicans in their so called big beautiful bill that cut Medicaid and health care they funded. So ICE does have a lot of money. We've just said we're not going to give them even more money. Oh, so this is all about that. You don't like that this would fund them until the end of the term. But that's not even up for debate, right? None of this makes any sense. None of this makes any sense whatsoever. Now, John Fetterman is trying to once again, kind of be voice of reason. Man, he's in some hot water for a different reason. But anyway, here's the senator from Pennsylvania who does understand, by the way, that this looks really, really, really bad for purple state senators in the upcoming election. Here's John Fetterman getting harder and harder
- [37:59]
Scott Besant
to justify this, extending the shutdown. I mean, I, I even brought up, you know, something even more accessible to, you know, an average American like the soccer fans. There's, there's millions. And now preparations are significantly behind. And now we're 77 days out, and this is still shut down. And you have millions of people from abroad coming and millions of Americans joining these two. And it's like if you've seen the kinds of chaos at the airports, I can't even imagine. Now you have millions coming here for World Cup.
- [38:37]
Tony Kennett
Now, as a reminder, Fetterman voted no. Fetterman voted no. He's out here posturing. So what's he doing? Well, here's the problem. You've got John Hickenlooper in Colorado. You have Cory Booker in New Jersey. You have John Ossoff in Georgia. You have Mark Warner of Virginia, although that one's probably very, very safely blue for this particular election, who are not considered just rubber stamp. No problem. Gary Peters in Michigan, his seat, it's coming open this year. It is time for the midterm elections for a certain number of senators. And Fetterman, who kind of likes having, for example, John Ossoff of Georgia around to also be a purple state senator. Well, you know, if you get out there and you cut your own feet off, gee, it almost, almost appears that Americans aren't really going to lean in to the individuals who are holding everything up for no reason at all whatsoever. If you have to explain why you're doing something, you're losing. Now, last but not least, this brings us to Eric Swalwell. I don't know what possessed him to get on the interview and do this, but.
- [39:41]
Reporter/Interviewer
But isn't ICE funded?
- [39:42]
Tony Kennett
It was funded in the big beautiful bill.
- [39:46]
Scott Besant
So why don't we just fund TSA
- [39:49]
Tony Kennett
now, again, it is a very bad idea to short question the person giving you the interview. This is also something that you kind of. They teach you in correspondence school. I didn't go to correspondence school, but I'm told they teach this. You Never fire a little quip back at the person who is asking you interview questions. Never goes well. But he does this, you know, she said, hey, isn't ICE like already funded? He didn't give the Chris Van Holland answer, though. Radio crew, sorry, we see the commercial timer there. We got to send you away. We're going to continue on the live stream. It's the Tony Knitcast here on the Daily Signal. He does something a little different. He says, well, I mean, well, well, what if it is funded and she, you know, doesn't go well?
- [40:29]
Scott Besant
So why don't we just fund tsa?
- [40:33]
Tony Kennett
Well, I mean, in the reality is
- [40:36]
Reporter/Interviewer
that in the offer that Senate Republicans
- [40:38]
Tony Kennett
brought to you a few days ago, there was a plan to put funding for enforcement at the border. Plus, of course, Republicans want the SAVE
- [40:48]
Reporter/Interviewer
act in a reconciliation package and fund the rest of it.
- [40:51]
Scott Besant
That's right.
- [40:51]
Reporter/Interviewer
And yet Democrats said no.
- [40:56]
Tony Kennett
Yeah. And now we have a bill over from the House heading to the Senate again. So what in the world is it that you think that you're pulling out here? I don't think that it's anything good. Now here is the truth of the matter. This brings us to the updates on the Iran war, the Operation Epic Fury. And this brings us over to tax season. No one's been talking about tax season. It is truly the last political momentum shift in the country. So right now, the President of the United States, he's dealing with a lot regarding the rising gas prices and the Strait of Hormuzzi chaos over in the Middle east and therefore at home, the economic indicators are not swinging to the positive in the way that he would rather prefer in a midterm year. Now, this brings us over to the tax season side of things where we are starting to see some of the information come out from, you guessed it, the Secretary of the Treasury's office. So first of all, on the subject of tax return increases, fairly substantial. We're going to have to see, according to, as Besant relays some of this data and information to the treasury office, how this plays out for Americans. Kind of a big deal for the Q2 turnaround, as it were, a great
- [42:04]
Scott Besant
tax filing season refunds are up more than 10%. And what we're seeing, Brian, is almost 50% of the tax returns that have been filed have won a President Trump's signature campaign policies. No tax and tips, no tax and overtime, reduced taxes for our seniors on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans on the for American cars. And the big one, the home run, has been no tax on overtime, 25% of the tax returns that the IRS has received. The filers have claimed that deduction. So we're seeing bigger tax returns. But Brian, the other thing is taxpayers are going to or have changed their withholding for 2026 and they're getting automatic pay increases by changing their withholding.
- [42:57]
Tony Kennett
Now, those are big momentum gain pieces for the Trump administration. The problem rests in is the administration going to be able to restore the economic stability in the Middle east regarding the Strait of Hormuz, not just oil but also with petroleum products that deal with, for example, fertilizer going into this year? Because that really is the question. If you get around the time of the midterms and you start seeing this inflationary effect coming in from, for example, the fertilizer price increases that are going to then hit consumers, this could be a significant issue. And so that brings us back to other than kind of this, this short term, and I hate to say short term, look at the change in tax policy because it is a long term impact for Americans. This brings us over to the new updates on Iran. The Brent hitting $114 a barrel. We're going to talk about that because it was announced before it went up there. We're going to cover that. Don't go anywhere. We got to bring the radio crew back. It's the Tony Kinit cast here on the Daily Signal. It's the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WYPC updates on the Iranian stuff, the Strait of Hormuz, lot of stuff. Lot of money, a lot of goods flow through that strait. And so if one half of the economy this year is the localized relationship between economic growth and our tax system here in the country, taxes lowered, regulations down there should be fertile ground for economic movement forward. What about the Strait of Hormuz? What about the United States and the energy prices? What about the oil situation? What about the down products, the byproducts, the liquid natural gas, the fertilizer, things that come from that market? Here we go back to Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant.
- [44:45]
Scott Besant
The great tax filing season. The market is well supplied and we are seeing more and more ships go through on a daily basis as individual countries cut deals with the Iranian regime for the time being. But over time, the US Is going to retake control of the straits and there will be freedom of national navigation, whether it is through US Escorts or a multinational escort.
- [45:12]
Tony Kennett
Now this brings us to the updates in the war. So as you may have seen today, the Brent, that being the oil price per barrel internationally that closed at $114 a barrel. That is a lot of money for the price of oil. Why is that the case? Well, the Iranian parliament leader who is currently at a serious internal strife with the Iranian president and the IRGC newest latest generalissimo head, kind of a three way brawl happening inside the Iranian administration accidentally let the cat out of the bag. So when I say let the cat out of the bag, I mean that the Iranian parliament kind of let it slip through some leaked audio that I'm alas, I must tell you, was in Farsi suggesting to the United or to the broader world that they're going to try to clinch everything off as long as they can. Because the minute that the Iranians lose control over the oil exports to China, their words, according to Mohammed Bajer Zul Qadar, suggests that it will only be about three weeks until the Even without any outside external pressure, the administration collapses because there's just nothing. There's just nothing whatsoever. And so they have to keep the last little bit of pressure up. Now this is at the same time that the Trump administration has sent over a detachment of the 82nd Airborne to essentially sit on the edge of things, to simply loom over and say, hmm, those are some nice islands that you got going on there. A lot of islands. Gee, sure would be a shame if 90% of your oil production capacity was suddenly over with the United States of America because China gets a ton of its oil from Iran. And if China was suddenly buying oil from the United States and it was the United States who controlled as an international trade zone kind of a situation along with the other Gulf powers. Which brings us to the UAE and Saudi Arabia here in a couple of minutes. All of a sudden Brent plummets on the price and if energy prices plummet, if you see a drop from four or five dollar a gallon gas in the United States, because the situation resolves here in the next couple of weeks. As we're gonna point out with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the economic momentum that would spur off of that is pretty huge. That appears to be the plan at the moment. Now we'll get into some of the again the plan and the arguments and the internal strife in the regime or what's left of it right now. But here's an update from Secretary of State Rubio right into this morning on the Operation Epic Fury itself and what's being accomplished. Kind of a re outline of the
- [47:49]
Marco Rubio
goals this operation, okay. And that's what this is. It's about very specific objectives. The president laid them out on the first, first night of the operation. I'll repeat them to you now because I hear a lot of talk about we don't know what the clear objectives are. Here they are, you should write them down. Number one, the destruction of their air force. Number two, the destruction of their Navy. Number three, the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability. And number four, the destruction of their factory so they can't make more missiles and more drones to threaten us in the future. All of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon. That was our objective from the beginning. That remains our objective now. We are on pace and in fact ahead of schedule in some of those things and we are going to achieve those things in a number of weeks, not in a number of months.
- [48:32]
Tony Kennett
Now, setting that kind of a timeline again, with the current polls suggesting that 70% of Americans believe that we are winning in Iran, you have, according to the latest Harvard Harris poll, 76% of Americans believe that we are winning. That would be only 66% of Democrats to 34 who believe it or not, Republicans 91 to 9, independents 70 to 30. If the United States can pull off an economic rebalancing and a huge, a huge, huge shift on the international stage, like a lot of other Trump actions, in this case against China. There is an individual, Adam Morgan, he and I on kind of the same side of the aisle, kind of communicated on these lines over the weekend. This is getting transparency for transparency sake, that the Trump administration, if it pulls off a rebalancing of the Strait of Hormuz and all of a sudden we, or the Abraham Accord Group, the Gulf states, which the president really seems to be leaning in on, at least according to a comment by the president to our Elizabeth Mitchell, our White House correspondent. If the president is able to rebalance the trade of oil and associate of products out of the Strait of Hormuz, out of Carg island to the Chinese directly now the United States has effectively boxed China out of like three fourths of the global market. That doesn't have to do with the United States. That is a tremendous, tremendous shift of global power if it can be accomplished. And that's the key question. So the President of the United States floated a comment to the Financial Times. Maybe I'll think about taking Carg Island. They ran it as a huge story. I believe that we've been reporting on this for a couple of weeks now that that is likely to be the move from the President of the United States. But Secretary of State Marco Rubio made it also pretty clear, at least moving forward right now, that the Iranian regime that is negotiating with the United States, at least one part of it, has basically an option before it lay some arms down and come to a permanent series of negotiations along a plan with the United States. Or, or maybe the flip side being the United States takes Kharg, a couple of other key islands, gives the United Arab Emirates more territory, gives the Saudis some territory, maybe gives the Qataris some territory, gives Bahrain some territory, and then maybe we drop a little crown prince of sorts off in Iran, and then the United States maneuvers the global oil economy as an aid to rebuild a new regime after some type of popular uprising, which is what, according to sources on the ground, appears like. There are a lot of groups waiting for you to say, Tony. Those are a lot of ifs. Absolutely. Radio crew. We're going to continue over on the live stream. Tony, Kenneth cast here on the Daily Signal, that's over on YouTube. We'll catch you guys real soon. All right, now they're at their end of the broadcast. We can finish up over here on the live stream side of things. So Carolyn Levitt appears to be floating this exact same kind of argument over about the Iranians. So I believe she, she pointed out that they have a golden opportunity. At least that was how she, how she framed it. Here's the press secretary of the White House making this case.
- [51:56]
Reporter/Interviewer
This remains a truly once in a generation opportunity for the regime to make a good deal with the United States, permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and stop acting as the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. If the Iranians reject this golden opportunity, the greatest military in the history of the world continues to stand by to provide President Trump with every option available to ensure this regime continues to pay a grave price. One way or another, Iran will no longer have the credible ability to throw threaten the United States or our allies, which is, of course, the overall objective and mission the president set out when he launched Operation Epic Fury.
- [52:37]
Tony Kennett
Now this brings us at last, at the very last here, to the rift between President Pezeshkian. Ahem, I'm not going to pronounce that. President Pazechistan and the IRGC hardliners. So there are two groups left that are in the regime vying for control. So you have the pseudo kind of secular ish president, this being President Massoud Pazechistan. Don't care now. He's a reformist leaning elected leader from 2024. I, not necessarily on the reformist side. He, however, understands that the United States is over him with a thumb and not wanting to be an ant that enjoys the full weight of a thumb and is trying very desperately to negotiate with the United States through Pakistan. Now he is at odds with the new IRGC commander. The latest in a long line of IRGC commanders, essentially Ahmad Vahedi. And this is spilled into public view through a couple of things. There have been a couple of statements that seem at odds with each other's a couple of appointments. It's very, very hard to determine the appointment capacity and which of these came from which individuals. And then leaks, audio leaks. So first of all, President Possession has publicly criticized continued military escalation because he understands that if the United States and Israel and other countries and powers like the uae, who is extra super duper pissed, get pissed enough to start destroying some of the key electric and municipal water, like desalinization and energy production capacity, Iran is going to have extra levels of nothing and no international anything to help them out. It's a bit harder for the socialists to launch a little freedom flotilla through the Straits of Hormuz. You don't see Greta Thunberg sailing with her hopes and dreams into the Strait of Hormuz. She's doing pleasure cruises to Cuba instead. So here's the interesting part. Reportedly, this is according to some of the audio leaks, So a little less on the reportedly side. He's pushed for restraint, including an apology to Gulf states for Iranian strikes on them and a pledge not to hit them again. Now, that's already fallen through since this was compiled. Already the IRGC has launched a series of limited strikes against the rest of the Arabian allies. Huge issue, because this would mean the president's office in Iran again, because the supreme Leader, the Mukhtaba Khomeini, gay son of Al Khamenei, who was tweeting beyond the grave, apparently because Mukhtaba is unavailable for comment, in a rather homosexual coma at the moment, and possibly legless and armless, floating there, Bob on the gurney. They're struggling. There seems to be no clear line of communication. There have also been some deleted statements, meaning that perhaps different members inside the regime have access to the same accounts. They're trying to lock one another out. So on the IRGC side, the IRGC allegedly, we have to say, that pressured Pazikistan and against his and other officials, wishes to appoint the hardliner Mohammed Bahadir Zolhadir as the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council after Larjani's death. So the Guard is really trying to tighten their grip on key security bodies. But the number of surprise drive by guerrilla assaults in border towns outside of Tehran and across the rest of the country, those type of guerrilla attacks as weapons do start to disseminate amongst the civilians in Iran. Well, the IRGC is not going to be able to tighten its grip very much. And to quote as much as it pains me too, because quoting Star wars in politics is often a very cringy thing to do. To quote Princess Leia, the more star systems you tighten your grip, the more slip through your fingers. And so the IRGC as a regime, you're really only able to tighten your grip if you have a full grip on the country. If you tighten your grip on places you don't have full control and power over, you push things over to the edge. So here's where the power dynamics really start to does the United States believe that pushing Kharg island over is going to kind of shove Pakistan and the IRGC leaders together? Or if Pazakistan agrees to kind of surrender to the United States and agree to this 15 point super duper plan of excellence and fun, is that going to put the IRGC in a position that's untenable? Can Pasecki stand be used? Is the question that is being asked right now by Rubio, by Vance and by Trump. Because if Pzechistan can be used, well then maybe they have an opportunity here to get rid of the IRGC together. Cough up a lot of data and all of a sudden the IRGC is the rest of the way exposed. But if he can't be used, then Carg island gets seized and so do a bunch of other islands which we've covered on a previous show. So we're gonna kick out to the break real quick and then we're gonna talk a little bit with one young lady, a PhD student, a Mooney Rahimi. And some really interesting kind of framework on this from someone who actually has friends and family in Iran who left Iran a few years ago. Because what the Iranian people want on the other side of a regime collapse that does appear to be imminent given the rapid rise in guerrilla attacks from civilians or external groups will matter a whole lot here pretty soon. So don't go anywhere. A lot of COVID tonight. It's the Tony Kinnit cast here on the Daily Signal.
- [58:23]
Reporter/Interviewer
If I could fall into the sky.
- [58:28]
Tony Kennett
This is the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIPC. One thing that we know about the Iranian war discussion, the news discussion, it's that a bunch of middle aged white women from California are Desperate to tell you what they think about international events. So to shake things up a little bit, we decided to actually bring on someone who is Iranian, someone who is deeply in touch with the crowd culture, who has family over there presently, who was over there until a little bit ago. Mune Rahimi, really great to have you appreciate the work that you're doing. How are things going?
- [59:04]
Munay Rahimi
Well, hello Tony. Thank you so much for having me, first of all. And then just, just to tell you that how things are going there, you know that after US and Azer intervention to Iran and after that, all the Iranians inside and outside were happy celebrating because that was a thing people of Iran, especially inside Iran, they wanted this for such a long time because there was, there was no way that people of Iran could do it by themselves. We don't have gun. Like we cannot carry gun. We were with bare hands. More than 50,000 people died in two days by Islamic regime in the street while they were killed protesting. And this was a thing that people knew that, okay, that's the only thing that if happen we can get free. So they we were so done. We were so fed up that we want this regime to go away that we were actually asking President Donald Trump for a month to like do the intervention. And after that this happened, all the people inside, outside were happy that President Donald Trump had the guts to do it. And he's the only person that was willing to do this like the other president. They were just like giving money, they just like trying to like give power to like the ayatollah, those dictator to stay in power. So this is the only like President Donald Trump is the only president that could do this. And we're so thankful that he done this for, he's doing this for us.
- [60:49]
Tony Kennett
How hard has it been for you to stay in touch with people, your friends, your family inside Iran? We know that recently your cousin passed away and very, very sorry to hear that. What is it like trying to get in touch? I know they tried to block Internet access for a while. They're still attempting, although it's starting to fail. Help us understand what it's like trying to stay in touch with those that you love and care about over there.
- [61:13]
Munay Rahimi
Well, Islamic regime of Iran, they cut off the Internet for almost a month now. And they doing this every time that there is a protest or there is something like this happening in Iran. And the reason just to like tell you the reason is so they cut off the Internet to shut down the voice of Iranian inside and they give Internet to just A few people themselves, like a regime people. So they became online, they like trying to like spread propaganda, trying to like spread fake news, lies to the world so they can kind of like change the narrative.
- [61:53]
Tony Kennett
Right?
- [61:53]
Reporter/Interviewer
We're doing.
- [61:54]
Munay Rahimi
So this is a thing that happening. Like US and Israel are only bombing Islamic regime facilities and Islamic forces and not the civilians. No civilians were targeted, although the Iran, Islamic regime of Iran, they're targeting civilians of Israel and they're targeting like other countries, Arab countries like Qatar or Dubai that they were targeting. So they doing this to change the narrative. And on normal people, regular people, the civilians inside Iran, they don't have access to Internet like myself. I haven't talked to my, my family because I have a little bit of family and a little bit of relative inside Iran. Haven't talked to them for a week. This is so difficult to talk to them. And if, if you want to like talk to them, we have to be careful. We cannot talk about war, about things that happening about Islamic regime forces because they're still executing people. They're executing those people that they arrested a month ago in, during January 8 and month when they were like protesting for freedom and basing human rights that like they killed like more than 50,000. They arrested hundreds, hundreds of thousand people and right now they're executing them like recently they executed a 19 years old champion wrestler champion. And they're doing this just to shut down the voice of Iranians, change the narrative and spread lies and propaganda to the world. Like just you mentioned that people in west they're trying to like be anti war, they trying to like stop this from happening. And this is the thing that the Islamic regime is doing it, that this is the thing that Islamic regime is funding those people to doing to the world to like be the propaganda of themselves.
- [64:03]
Tony Kennett
I know there are a couple of different groups that are suggesting they would want to come in and maybe either take control or that there are a couple of different things that they want to see happen in Iran. From the outside, from the limited conversation that you have had with family, with others inside Iran, other Iranians before this happened and since this intervention has begun. What do you think is the greatest desire of the Iranian people from who you've talked to?
- [64:33]
Munay Rahimi
Well, the greatest desire of them. First of all they wanted this to happen because you can see like USA is bombing for three weeks and they're not still done. Like they, they, they stick to the country like so hard and this is, this is really difficult to get rid of them. So the greatest desire of them is first of all, to finish this regime. And the second of all, they're chanting for our leader, Princess of Pahlavi, and we want him to be the transitional leader. And this is the only way to reach to the free Iranian future. Like he's the only way. There is no one else, absolutely no one else. And only Princess of Pahlavi can help us doing this because everybody else are kind of connected to the Islamic regime and they're like their people. They're trying to do this, spread their names and their reputation among people. But we know that they are regime people. They're the same. So if we have them as leader again, same thing is going to happen to Iran because they're connected. They're regime people. They have the same ideology. So no one else, there is no one else than Princess of Halevi. All the people inside and outside chanting for this person and to be the leader of future for Ira.
- [66:07]
Tony Kennett
Well, Munay, thank you so much for giving us a couple of minutes. Again, Munay Rahimi, I really appreciate the work that you're doing. Please stay safe. We know Obviously as a PhD student, this wasn't how you expected to be spending your time, but giving a voice to these people and an authentic voice who knows what's going on. You're obviously in our prayers. Your family is in our prayers. We hope that you're able to to make contact again with them very soon.
- [66:31]
Munay Rahimi
Yep. Thank you so much, Tony, for giving me this opportunity to talk about the situation in Iran. And I really appreciate your support.
- [66:40]
Tony Kennett
Our pleasure. All right, really quick here. Before the end of the show, we do have another conversation on some bizarre lady, just really creepy, no king stuff. We'll get to that. But I do want to give a little bit of an update because there have been a couple of questions, more information on Abdul Abu Bakr Ali. So according to kstp, that is the ABC affiliate up in Minneapolis, so this feeding our future defendant, so he was brought up on both state and federal charges. The reason that he is getting out a year with only a year in prison a year and a day is because of Nancy Brassel. So Nancy Brossel is the US District judge who sentenced him. She is a again a US District judge. That makes her a federal judge. She says that because he showed genuine remorse for his crimes, that that is why he is is being again sentenced only to a year, which is just very, very bizarre. He also doesn't have to turn himself in until June 2, which is also really, really, really bizarre. I'm sorry, it's just Very, very strange. Andy no points out that he directly, directly is responsible, like as an in person taking the checks in person for $3 million of that fraud alone. So there have been some who have suggested this is just a guy who's just caught up in a, just caught up in a bad scheme and a bad system. No, this was a guy who went out and like, like beat the streets for the fraud. And, and even after, even after his, his sentencing, his attorney disagreed with any prison time at all. I mean, that is what an attorney is supposed to do, saying, well, Mr. Ali had the best of intentions. Incredible. I mean, just truly incredible. Now, one person asked if the federal government could step in and basically, you know, solicit a bunch of other funding, say, well, you also need to pay all of this stuff. No, because that power lies with the district judge here. So the federal government could make an argument and say, hey, well, we really want all of the money back. But that's not what's happening here. That's not what's happening at all. It, it appears, based on the reporting that this federal judge kind of stepped in and said, well, he showed genuine contrition and sadness. And, you know, he, he kind of teared up a little bit at one point. And they've also, in this plea agreement, also knocked off one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which is bizarre, and one count of wire fraud. Those were dismissed at the sentencing. That is bonkers. So the man also committed wire fraud, was found guilty of committing wire fraud of sending that money to, you guessed it, Somalia. And what's the response? What's like the federal judge? Well, I mean, he just show genuine contrition and love and hugs and friendship. So in this case, to me, I would say that the actual next steps here need to be the impeachment and removal of yet another district judge. But, you know, I mean, asking for that is like asking for, you know, water from the desert. Kind of a tall order in and of itself. So that little bit aside, I do want to get to just one last heavy cringe point. Again, news that hasn't really been covered. Also, I mean, or I should say, sorry, not also. The no Kings protests were obviously covered. However, there's one major exciting holiday that you may not have heard of that kind of fits in with this equal payday for women. So I'm not, you know, the no Kings protests were kind of an all inclusive resort of whining. One of the things that was being whined about was that women are being killed everywhere in the country, especially black women are being killed just by the boatload. The Daily Wire reported there were numerous protesters claiming that black women were being targeted specifically at hospitals, which is an interesting claim for sure. But one protester told Nate Friedman that she was out there as an old white lady because black women couldn't be and shouldn't be. Seems like there's a lack of diversity here today, that it's mostly people who look like you and I and I just.
- [71:08]
Reporter/Interviewer
This is not, it is not for black people, for people of color to be, to get out on the street there.
- [71:16]
Tony Kennett
Well, well, I mean it usually when I, when I hear people, hey, it's a bunch of really old sad leftist white people that are out here doing a lot of the yelling. And then in la there's a bunch of young socialist people throwing bricks at federal officers and buildings to answer that with. Well, yeah, we don't really want a bunch of black women out here. I'm. Woohoo. It's a lack of diversity here today that it's mostly people who look like you and I and I just.
- [71:41]
Reporter/Interviewer
It's not, this is not, it is not for black people, for people of color to be, to get out on the street. They're at risk when they do that. If anybody's going to get arrested here, it's going to be a black person. It is not safe for them and they don't need to participate. We need to walk in their name.
- [72:00]
Tony Kennett
Ah, yes, my favorite, my favorite kind of like, well, those black people there. So you can either go one or two ways with this. So you can just say, number one, they're two dumb not to do things that get them arrested. That would be option number one. Number two, the counter argument is that, well, you know, you have a bunch of, of racist white cops that are the real problem. That's the real issue. There were at the no Kings rallies a couple of ICE officers who were nearby at federal facilities who were being laughed at or excuse me, that were being mocked and yelled at, that the officers were doing the laughing by angry white socialist protesters because they were black and brown ICE officers. Now that kind of tears this entire narrative to shreds. But anyway, again, no one is more just Pearl clutching, proud of herself than an old white lady on the left. Gotcha. Okay, what do you think about voter id? Do you think it's racist?
- [73:07]
Reporter/Interviewer
It's a hundred percent a tactic to control the population and prevent people from voting so that the only votes, so that the gerrymandering can work, so that white voters can vote in white Christian males.
- [73:25]
Tony Kennett
Have you been voting blue your most of your life? You see, they get the voter ID so that the gerrymandering can control the vote. You plug it into your printer and then you dial in the secret Jimmy John's code and presto, you control the elections. Just like Scott Besant and Elon Musk always wanted to. Yeah, yeah, exciting. So, you know, I was kind of curious as to what black women thought about this. There were quite a few angry old white liberal protesters that were out there screaming about black women all day. Very, very weird. And so we, you know, I mean, I just thought personally. Welcome back to the Tony Kinnid cast here on the Daily Signals. We were talking about right before we slipped off to the commercial break of the craziest arguments from the no Kings protest over the weekend. One of the weirdests that I'd seen was these little clips, these little pieces of individuals saying it wasn't safe for women to be out or for black women to be out and nonsense about this no equal pay, equal payday stuff that I guess just passed. So instead of me bumbling through that, we bring on Patrisse Onwuka out from WMAL over in Maryland. Great, fantastic station out there on the east coast. And of course, one of the greatest over at the Independent Women's Forum. You know how much we love them. Patrice, thanks for joining us.
- [74:53]
Reporter/Interviewer
Oh, great to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [74:55]
Tony Kennett
Now, we'll get to some of the economic stuff, which is your wheelhouse, in a couple of minutes. But I do got to ask you because, you know, for those who maybe didn't know, you might perhaps take a bit of a line of offense or something. I know you were out there recording some of these protests. Did you know it was terribly unsafe for black women to be out protesting?
- [75:14]
Reporter/Interviewer
I missed the memo. I was actually out with my family driving, and then I noticed a smattering of baby boomers hanging out on the corners between sides. And I said, oh, it's the no Kings protest.
- [75:27]
Tony Kennett
A smattering of baby boomers on the corner.
- [75:31]
Reporter/Interviewer
And a dinosaur, believe it or not. I'm sorry, a dinosaur. A prehistoric dinosaur was on the corner with them waving as well. That is that. That just shows you the insanity of the people who are part of the Snow Kings protest. Either retirees who have nothing to do and want to feel like they're doing something, probably a few bustin protesters who either was up in New Philly or will be heading down a little bit further south to Richmond, you know, and then you had a couple of of dine and a dinosaur. So that's what I saw. But I didn't, I didn't feel unsafe, surprisingly. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to even be out there. Perhaps I would arrested as a black woman and oh, and on top of that I'm a naturalized citizen, so I guess ICE would just round me up as well. It's so insulting. But this is the roots of the Democratic Party. There are still a lot of racists, soft bigots, and they are in the Democratic party and they just expose themselves in times like this.
- [76:29]
Tony Kennett
Now this is usually where I would spin into a bit of an alternate where I would talk about how usually on the right, a lot of the baby boomers would be involved in their communities and churches and with families and not out yelling on street corners with misspelled signs. But that you and I have trodden that ground so much over the last couple of years, I obviously know based on your work. So let's dive into some of the economic stuff. And I don't mean the go to sleep stuff. I mean, this is so laughably common sense that it's kind of crazy. You and I have to talk about it. Equal payday was March 26th. I'm sure you celebrated. I mean, I was counting down the days. This is getting more hilarious by the year. Tell us, tell us why Equal Pay
- [77:12]
Reporter/Interviewer
day is a fake holiday. It's supposed to be the number of days into the year that women on average have to work to make up for an entire year of men's paychecks. We know that this is a fall holiday based on a very faulty statistic which is just the averages or the median earnings of men and women. When you do that, it seems like there's a $0.19 pay gap that the left attributes to rampant race or, sorry, sexual discrimination in the workplace. That's not true. Because when you control for factors, time, the time people, the number of hours men and women work full time versus part time, the industries, the occupations, even the educational levels and the, the degrees that men and women earn, even how dangerous your job is, and the pay gap all but disappears. And a big part of it obviously, is, not surprisingly, about family. Women take time out of the workforce or go into career paths or tight or just choose a schedule to be able to accommodate having kids, childcare, all the requirements and the duties as part of a family. And that shows up in the pay gap. But you know what? When women who don't have kids and don't get married, you see that they earn as much or more as men over the course of their career. It's all about family choices. And that's a good thing we get to make.
- [78:28]
Tony Kennett
I seem to remember these conversations and these arguments made like on sitcoms in the 90s as common sense issues, is to say, no, I'm not less than a man because of some, some fictional pay gap. I'll never forget how many different individuals on these shows, back when common sense on this issue was a lot more common, would articulate the silliness of this kind of inherent downplaying of another person's character or ability. And I see this crop up again in the Save America Act. Obviously the idea that women are too stupid or that black people are too poor or whatever the excuse is this week that no one could go get their voter id, that they could say, oh, hey, I've had a name change. I do want to funnel it a little bit differently to you though. How do you see in the next 20 to 30 years the way that women are communicated to. Do you think that this becomes kind of a bitter pill that turns a lot of young women away from the messaging of the left? Or do you see a lot of maybe self argument trying to rationalize, well, maybe I don't like this, but after all they're a lot better than Republicans kind of a thing. Where do you see it going?
- [79:37]
Reporter/Interviewer
Yeah, well, I mean, I think the, the challenge is that you have to win a lot of young women and they hear from the right, the left, some really compelling arguments both about, you know, just community and involvement, but also about, you know, something, someone there to take care of you regardless of the choices you get to make. And sometimes on the right we tend to fall into the belief that you can either be a trad wife and stay at home, or you can be a corporate ladder climber and go out there and never have a family. And I think as on the right, what we are really embracing at independent women and there is a third lane and that third lane is really broad, which is where you can have one foot in the workforce, two feet in the workforce if you want, and do that as a self employed person, maybe a freelancer, maybe a gig worker who's just supplementing their income. But these are really, this is a women's issue about giving women choices over how they earn incomes to accommodate the schedules and their priorities. And that will look very different across different phases of your life. When you're a young woman, you may want to have two or three side hustles in addition to your, your traditional W2 job. Because you're building up clients, you're building up money when you're, you're in your mid-30s, mid-40s, and you need to be able to have a stay at home, to have children, but you still want to have a little bit of a toe in the workforce. Maybe that's when you have your, your own, you hang your shingle and have your own enterprise. So I think as, as the right, what we need to do is continue to embrace the idea of protecting work no matter what it looks like so that you as an individual, woman or man can create the, the American dream that want. That you want for yourself. Let, let individuals define freedom. The left is defining it as a traditional 9 to 5 job behind the desk with, with unionized worker paid for benefits.
- [81:22]
Tony Kennett
Right.
- [81:22]
Reporter/Interviewer
And not everybody wants that. And frankly we know where union dues go to. They don't go to support candidates or policies that actually empower individuals. And so as we on the right talk about choices and reclaim that term to be not just about your biology, but really about your, your whole self, then I think we can start to make some inroads with young women.
- [81:44]
Tony Kennett
One of the last questions I have for you here, and I know there's a million places we could go. I regret that I don't have time to ask you about the, the economic factors behind the kind of recovery of the Strait of Hormuz after we might have to have you back here pretty soon. I saw the eyes there. Yeah, there's a month of Sundays worth of conversation to have on this. I do want to piggyback on the last kind of a cultural note here. There is a revivification of the idea of the family on the right in a again a traditional and it's faith aspect traditional in the love between a father and a mother, a husband and a wife here. And one of the things that has bothered me that's gotten under my skin just a bit is how quickly some of the grifter crew moved in and cheapened the role of a, a wife in the home and in the workforce as just a kink. The idea that it's. It's just something to, to satisfy some type of weird, strange kind of only fans fantasy. And I've seen this almost sexualization of the role of the wife and mother. And so again as someone who has worked with the Independent Women's Forum, as you have your expertise in this area as, and I promise you guys, this isn't in the notes I'm genuinely curious because I, I've seen the frustration it's brought to my wife seeing it sexualized like this. What do you see as kind of the long term impact, if anything? Is this just a short term fad of this or a cheap imitation, you know, being the sincere form of flattery here? What, what do you see is this kind of weird offshoot perversion of the movement.
- [83:19]
Reporter/Interviewer
You know, I think it heartens back to the kind of the days in the past when there were very traditional roles where women stayed at home, raised the family, you know, wore perfect size two dress, you know, the cleaver's mom, you know. Oh yeah, and that's perfectly fine to desire to have traditional values to traditional roles. That's perfectly fine if that's what your family wants to have. Not every family needs to look the same. And as conservatives, we've got to be really careful about that. One size fits all. You know, we talk about that in lots of different types of policies. That holds true for family policy. I have seen the embrace of greater family policy and my heart says, oh, that's nice, but I, but I. My head says let's be careful about both the romanticization of kind of that, that old way and the one and only way and also bringing opening the door to big government, Uncle Sam to make that happen. Whether that's through tax policy, whether that's through family policies that really are just an expansion of the state because under
- [84:24]
Tony Kennett
a shiny name, kind of alluring, kind of. Who doesn't want family policy? I mean, come on, the word families in it.
- [84:30]
Reporter/Interviewer
But the challenge there is once you open the door and you feed that beast of, of the Leviathan government, then you can't, you can't put it on Ozempic. When a different administration comes into power and family policy gets hijacked and family in the traditional role becomes family in the new role. And so even at independent women, we don't just talk about family, we talk about household policies, recognizing that they're what single women who have careers, maybe have money, may never have children, may never get married. We want them to see that conservative values, limited government. Keep more of your money that's important to you, less regulation as a small business owner, that is just as important to you as family policies for families who have kids, who are raising kids, who are taking care of aging parents. It's got to be one. It cannot be one size fits all. It's got to be everything above the line.
- [85:21]
Tony Kennett
I mean, this is one of the reasons why we love seeing the work that you guys do over at Independence Women's Forum. Of course, normally when I talk about these things, it's usually with Inez Stepman. So never had the pleasure to chat about this one with you. But seriously, Patrice Onwuk, who she's the vice president of economic policy at the Independent Women's Forum, also co host over at wmal. Stellar talent there. Thanks for giving us a couple of minutes. I know it was a whiplash conversation, but our audience does appreciate it.
- [85:48]
Reporter/Interviewer
Terrific. Thanks for having me.
- [85:51]
Tony Kennett
All right, we are rounding things up for the evening tomorrow. We've got a ton that I want to cover with you guys. An article from the Daily Mail that is very likely to need a serious retraction, suggesting that the bullet used to kill Charlie Kirk did not match the rifle allegedly used by Tyler Robinson. Just like blatantly not true articles that are being posted. And then we've got, of course, some really big stuff coming on the Senate. We're going to talk with our own producer, Josiah, just a little bit about the sort of Schrodinger's recess. But before we toddle off for the evening, a huge, huge thank you to very, very, very kind giving a super chat to the show. The original Jersey Jen Kind two dollar super chat, asking folks to throw a like and subscribe and ring the bell. Very kind. You guys don't have to give super chats to the show. Really do appreciate those who do. That said, we're going to be back tomorrow. Same great time, Same great place, 7pm Eastern. It's the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated and first on 93 WIBC. Take care.