ANOTHER Massive Somali Fraud in Ohio plus Tucker Descends into Madness

Summary

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Verdict with Ted Cruz, May 6, 2026:

"ANOTHER Massive Somali Fraud in Ohio plus Tucker Descends into Madness"

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Episode Overview

In this episode of "Verdict with Ted Cruz," Senator Ted Cruz and co-host Ben Ferguson dive deep into two major news themes: a new wave of Medicaid and welfare fraud allegedly perpetrated by Somali-linked home health care businesses in Ohio, and the recent controversies surrounding Tucker Carlson, particularly his interviews, comments on US senators, and what Cruz calls his "descent into madness." The episode is marked by a tone of urgency, outrage, and strong conservative advocacy, focusing on both breaking investigative journalism and ongoing cultural/media battles.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Massive Medicaid Fraud in Ohio (03:21 - 27:26)

Patterns of Fraud and Abuse

• Ted Cruz highlights a "staggering" pattern of federal taxpayer money being siphoned off by fraudulent home health care businesses, noting this mirrors alleged schemes previously exposed in Minnesota.
  • “We saw, first of all, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Somali fraudsters stealing over $9 billion. But the problem is not limited to Minnesota. We now have a breaking blockbuster story…about Ohio, the very same pattern.” (03:36 – Ted Cruz)

Details of the Daily Wire Investigation

• Citing a new Daily Wire report by Luke Rosiak, Cruz and Ferguson describe how Medicaid payouts for home health care in Ohio have been a "black box" for decades, only recently illuminated by newly published data.
  • "[The report] reveals one of the biggest government waste scandals hiding in plain sight…This is the biggest scandal I've ever found." (08:40 – Ted Cruz, quoting Rosiak)
• They explain the fraud as stemming from Medicaid policies that allow relatives to bill the government for providing unverified home "care" services, sometimes limited to mere “companionship and conversation.”
  • “You can talk to your relatives…and the federal government will pay you just for talking to grandpa.” (10:57 – Ted Cruz)

Columbus, Ohio as Epicenter

• Columbus is singled out, with its large Somali population allegedly exploiting the Medicaid system on a vast scale.
  • “Columbus has become, on the surface, the most unhealthy city on the planet.” (12:50 – Ted Cruz)
• Local investigative reports are cited on strip malls filled with fake daycares and fraudulent trucking companies.

Notable Fraud Examples

• Multiple stories from the Daily Wire investigation are highlighted:

  1. A politician who founded an $11 million home health care company and funded political campaigns with donations from other home health care owners.
  2. A woman who shifted her janitorial LLC to a “health provider” and billed nearly $100,000 to Medicaid in her first month.
     • “Nearly 100 grand.” (19:50 – Ted Cruz)
  3. A landlord who cashed in over $250 million by renting space to fraudulent health care firms.
  4. A convicted Medicaid fraudster who claimed poverty to avoid restitution while his network continued the scheme.
  5. An accountant (with a revoked license) who launched a $7 million health care company using a money launderer’s address.

• “If you’re not pissed off, that’s impressive—you’re not paying attention.” (21:11 – Ben Ferguson)

Systemic Lapses and Lack of Oversight

• Cruz blasts politicians, state employees, and media for neglect and complicity, noting the fraud is possible anywhere due to the federal payouts and lax oversight.
  • “Nearly every owner of a home health care company in Columbus appears to be foreign…They all share combinations of just a few names like Ahmed, Muhammad and Muhammad Ahmed. How is this not satire?” (22:15 – Ted Cruz)
• The Medicaid billing system is described as so opaque and unregulated that falsification is easy, with little risk of prosecution.
  • “It only takes one doctor who will say yes to churn out enough forms to bankrupt a state.” (24:10 – Ted Cruz)

Government and Media Responses

• Senator Cruz commends the Trump administration for launching a new fraud task force, lambasts mainstream outlets for ignoring the scandal, and thanks the Daily Wire for real investigative journalism.
  • “Let me ask, where the hell is CNN? ABC, NBC?...CBS is doing a little bit, but [the] Washington Post, New York Times?” (27:26 – Ted Cruz)
  • “This is just the tip of the iceberg on what’s happening.” (29:33 – Ted Cruz)

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2. Tucker Carlson’s "Descent into Madness" (31:41 – 44:03)

Critique of Carlson’s NYT Interview and Alleged Obsession

• Ferguson and Cruz discuss Tucker Carlson’s recent New York Times interview, focusing on repeated attacks on Cruz and defenses of controversial figures like Nick Fuentes.
  • “This loon…I am living completely rent free in his brain and every word he’s saying is a brazen lie.” (36:39 – Ted Cruz)

Carlson on Nick Fuentes vs. Ted Cruz Debate

• Carlson is quoted describing Cruz as more “morally repulsive” than Nick Fuentes due to his perceived support for military actions.
  • “Ted Cruz is a sitting US Senator who has called for the killing of people who did nothing wrong…That’s basically the entire US Senate does every single day and no one notices.” (Guest 1, quoting Tucker, 34:01)
• Cruz rebuts with a fierce denial and attacks Carlson’s record.
  • “Never once have I called for the murder of innocence. Never once have I called for the murder of children … It’s at a point where it’s a pathological lie.” (36:39 – Ted Cruz)

Accusations of Normalizing Extremism

• Cruz lambasts Carlson for “normalizing Nazis” and giving platforms to figures with white nationalist or communist ties. He alleges Carlson is “being compensated…by Qatar or other foreign nations.”
  • “His mission is also to normalize Nazis…one of the things he said this week, [is that] Graham Platner…is a self-described communist [with] a Totenkampf [SS concentration camp tattoo]. [Carlson said], ‘Oh, I want to interview [him].’ I’m sure they do. Maybe they have matching Nazi tattoos.” (38:10 – Ted Cruz)
• Cruz also says, “If you are an America hater, Tucker Carlson loves you. If you’re an American who believes in free enterprise…he hates your guts.” (42:50 – Ted Cruz)

Carlson’s Trump Antichrist Controversy

• They discuss Carlson being confronted with his own comments about Trump possibly being the Antichrist.
  • “He asked very directly, is Donald J. Trump the Antichrist? Look, I’m willing to answer that—no, I don’t believe President Trump is the Antichrist. But Tucker doesn’t live in the world of facts.” (41:47 – Ted Cruz)
• Cruz asserts that Carlson lies routinely and has lost significant credibility, though he is still “charming” and “talented.”
  • “He is becoming so irrelevant right now. And listen, I hope he has a really nice home in Qatar. By the way, you may not know this, but he bragged that he has bought a home in Qatar.” (42:50 – Ted Cruz)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Medicaid Fraud

• “You can talk to your relatives, you can hang out, and the federal government will pay you just for talking to grandpa.”
  — Ted Cruz (10:57)
• “If you’re not pissed off, that’s impressive—you’re not paying attention.”
  — Ben Ferguson (21:11)
• “Nearly every owner of a home health care company in Columbus appears to be foreign...They all share combinations of just a few names like Ahmed, Muhammad and Muhammad Ahmed. How is this not satire?”
  — Ted Cruz (22:15)
• “It only takes one doctor who will say yes to churn out enough forms to bankrupt a state.”
  — Ted Cruz (24:10)

On Tucker Carlson

• “This loon…I am living completely rent free in his brain and every word he’s saying is a brazen lie.”
  — Ted Cruz (36:39)
• “Never once have I called for the murder of innocence. Never once have I called for the murder of children…It’s at a point where it’s a pathological lie.”
  — Ted Cruz (36:39)
• “His mission is also to normalize Nazis...one of the things he said this week is...Graham Platner…is a self-described communist [with] a Totenkampf [SS concentration camp tattoo]. [Carlson said], ‘Oh, I want to interview [him].’ I'm sure they do. Maybe they have matching Nazi tattoos.”
  — Ted Cruz (38:10)
• “If you are an America hater, Tucker Carlson loves you. If you’re actually an American…he hates your guts.”
  — Ted Cruz (42:50)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:21 – Opening and introduction of Somali fraud topic
• 03:36 – Ted Cruz: pattern of Medicaid fraud in Minnesota and now Ohio
• 08:40 – Details from Luke Rosiak/Daily Wire report
• 11:45 – Ben Ferguson on a family-based fraud model
• 12:22 – Further exploration of payment-for-companionship scam
• 16:15 – Ted Cruz reads more shocking examples of fraud
• 19:50 – $100K in first month from janitorial to health care fraud
• 21:11 – Ben Ferguson: "If you’re not pissed off…"
• 22:15 – Cruz: Foreign ownership commentary, document irregularities
• 24:10 – The doctor form loophole
• 27:26 – Comments on government/media responses
• 31:41 – Segue to Tucker Carlson discussion
• 34:01 – Carlson’s NYT interview quote on Cruz/Fuentes
• 36:39 – Ted Cruz rebuttal and attacks on Carlson, normalization of extremism
• 41:47 – Trump Antichrist discussion
• 42:50 – Cruz: “If you are an America hater, Tucker Carlson loves you…”
• 44:03 – Episode wrap-up

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Overall Tone and Style

The tone is fiery, combative, and direct—Cruz and Ferguson both invite outrage both at the waste/fraud stories and at media/Carlson's perceived failures. The style blends bombastic rhetoric (“living rent free,” “normalizing Nazis”) with detailed, granular reporting and anecdotal examples. Cruz is especially direct in his attacks on both bureaucratic failure and media complicity, while Ferguson acts as an engaged, animated co-host.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode of "Verdict with Ted Cruz" scrutinizes what the hosts say is a massive, spreading pattern of Medicaid fraud, particularly focusing on alleged Somali networks in Ohio, providing real-life examples and expressing significant outrage at government and media inaction. The second half takes aim at Tucker Carlson’s recent controversies, painting him as not just increasingly marginalized, but actively dangerous in his “normalization” of extremism and attacks on the American right. The discussion is rich in cited examples, charged rhetoric, and political context—ideal for listeners seeking a conservative, insider's perspective on these evolving stories.

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Transcript

[Host]

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[Ben Ferguson]

Welcome it is Verdique Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. It's nice to have you with us on the show and we've got a big one for you, including more Somali fraud reported in a Republican state. And it is massive.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, I gotta say, the pattern we're seeing of fraud of people stealing from the federal taxpayers stealing from you is staggering. We saw, first of all, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Somali fraudsters stealing over $9 billion from taxpayers. But the problem is not limited to Minnesota. We now have a breaking blockbuster story from Daily Wire about Ohio, the very same pattern. Somali fraudsters engaged in fake home health companies stealing tens of millions of dollars from the taxpayers. This is a pattern that I think exists across the country. It's in the big blue states, it's in California, it's in New York, it's in Illinois, but it may well be in all 50 states. We're going to break it down and reveal the shocking facts of the that is going on in broad daylight. We're also gonna talk about the continued descent of Tucker Carlson into the spiral of madness. And I don't say that word lightly. He did an interview with the New York Times where he gets wackier and wackier. He attacks me over and over and over again. Apparently I am living rent free in the poor guy's brain. And he also is confronted by the fact that he's gone on air and he has accused Donald J. Trump of being the Antichrist. Now when the New York Times confronted him about that, he said, I didn't say that. I never say that. So they played him the clip of him saying exactly that and he just lied and denied it. And I gotta say, it is sad seeing Tucker Carlson getting more and more extreme and more and more irrelevant. We're gonna come to you with the facts on that as well.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, it really is incredible. Want to take a moment and talk to you about Rough Greens. And as many of you know, Memphis, our dog passed away recently. But the end of life that he had was awesome. We got him on rough greens and it gave him new life. He was acting like a puppy. Unfortunately he got a tumor and, and that was it. But we did get a new puppy who's named Birdie and we decided we weren't going to wait. Rough greens not only is amazing for your dog, but also for your puppy and they even have support as well for puppy development with rough greens and we've got them on that. It is making a huge difference because we want our puppy to have a great life. And that's why I want you to check out rough greens right now. After we saw what happened with our older dog, Memphis, we realized why wait until the dog's older? Why not give rough greens right now to little Birdie? And we know what it does. It supports long term health by providing live bioavailable nutrients including essential vitamins, minerals, probiotics, digestive enzymes and omega oils. Now the ingredients, they work together to improve nutrition absorption, also help Birdie maintain joint and muscle health as she grows and enhance her overall vitality. Now we care about Birdie's longevity. We've already lost two dogs unfortunately when they got older. And this is a way we can do everything we can to keep Birdie around as long as possible. Now there are deficiencies found in processed dog food, but rough greens, it supplements your dog or your puppy's diet with natural antioxidants and anti inflammatory compounds that help reduce oxidative stress, support immune defense as well and slow age related decline. That's what we love the most. Now it's easy. You're not buying new food, you just sprinkle it on the current food that your dog eats. And bamboo, they love it. So whether you've got a puppy or an older dog, you need to check out and try rough greens. You will see a difference. Now you don't have to change your dog's food. You just add rough greens and I'm going to offer you a free jump start trial bag. You just cover shipping. Use the discount code Verdict to claim your free jump start trial bag@rough greens.com that's R U F F Greens with an S.com promo code verdict. So don't change your dog's food, just add rough greens and watch the health benefits come alive center. Just since we started this show and we, we have this Somali fraud that we're going to talk about in Ohio. But, but there's a new article that just came out. I'm just going to read the headline because it Just shows how fast the fraud is, is, is being exposed. Somalis reportedly filled an Ohio strip mall with potential fraudulent child care centers. And this coming from the AB6 Investigators there in Columbus saying several Somali owned daycare facilities, including a cluster located strip mall which by the way, don't exist. They've now been uncovered. And then that is on top of another local station that just exposed a massive trucking company fraud. All of these trucking companies, like dozens and dozens, all at the same exact address in these tweets. So now we've got new fraud on top of fraud, on top of the fraud we're going to talk about on this show today.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah, it's a stunning pattern and it's clear the fraudsters believe they would never face any scrutiny, that no politician would hold them to account, that no prosecutor would hold them to account, that nobody in the media would ever report as they were stealing millions and millions of dollars from the taxpayers. And I gotta say, that tide is starting to turn. There's a blockbuster story of the Daily Wire by Luke Rosiak, who is the same lawyer who broke the Loudoun county story that the in Virginia that ended up electing Glenn Youngkin as the governor of Virginia. So, so he's demonstrated that he can do real, real news work in a way that cnn, abc, NBC, they don't do anymore. But, but this story, I want to read a good chunk of this story because if you haven't read it, you need to know what's in it. It's entitled Daily Wire Investigation Reveals one of the Biggest Government Waste Scandals Hiding in Plain sight. I've been investigating federal waste and fraud for 20 years. This is the biggest scandal I've ever found. Columbus, Ohio. Just before the Department of Government Efficiency closed its doors, it made a quiet move that may end up being its most lasting impact on the federal deficit. DOGE published a massive trove of data in February that for the first time let the public see what companies are billing Medicaid for. For decades, the payouts have been shrouded in secrecy. One of the largest government programs was a black box. I've spent the past two months diving into the numbers. What I found was the most blatant waste of federal dollars that I've encountered in my two decades as an investigative reporter. I've set my sights in Ohio, which like Minnesota has been granted waivers to expand Medicaid well beyond its original purpose. Under the guise of health care, Ohio pays people to go to Medicaid beneficiaries homes to perform homemaking and Chores like cooking and cleaning. The people performing these personal services tasks don't even have to be health care workers, and in many cases are actually relatives of the Medicaid recipient. According to a Daily Wire data analysis, Ohio spent a billion dollars billion with a B on home health care in 2024, the last year for which data is available. Since the services are performed inside private residences, there's no way to know whether the workers went at all or what they're actually doing in exchange for taxpayer funds. An infinite number of small black boxes. Inside a black box, multiple signs said the service provided and billed to the government was sometimes just, quote, companionship and conversation. So understand, you can talk to your relatives, you can hang out with your relatives and talk to them, and the federal government will pay you just for talking to grandpa.

[Ben Ferguson]

I mean, you. You listen to that story, and it doesn't even make sense until you understand that that's exactly what they're doing. They're like, hey, we're gonna pay you to hang out. Not take care, hang out with a relative. They're also, how would they get all the patients for the fraud to work? You put it on a billboard, right? Like you put up billboards. You recruit family members to defraud the government by hanging out and spending time with your own mom or dad or aunt or uncle or brother or sister. And we will pay you to do that. And, I mean, it's just. If that's not the definition of fraud, I don't know what is.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, it gets worse as people have realized the United States government will pay them to hang out with their own families.

[Ben Ferguson]

There it is.

[Ted Cruz]

Northeast Columbus has seen its economy replaced by businesses that bill Medicaid. And Columbus, a city with the second largest Somali population in the country. Did you know that? Columbus, Ohio. No, I didn't either.

[Ben Ferguson]

And. And that's shocking. But now it explains why the fraud's so high.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, Columbus has become, on the surface, the most unhealthy city on the planet.

[Ben Ferguson]

Now, to be clear, what we mean by that, because, like, usually in the past, you hear on Healthy City, you usually hear that it's like a city that's overweight, where the people aren't active

[Ted Cruz]

here, they're just flooding.

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[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, like, this is. This is the unhealthy, as in how much money is it taking to take care of people through Medicare? That is what's making it the most unhealthy city in America. It's not that it's like overweight population, food deserts and things like that. This is how bad the fraud is.

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[e-mail] Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconduct suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures the

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[Host]

I need your attention for 60 seconds.

[Ted Cruz]

Love.

[Host]

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[Ted Cruz]

Well, here's what one person said, quote, well, if the government is going to pay you to do it, one home health operator told me, people see it as lucrative, so they just jump on it. The new welfare queens aren't the recipients whose low incomes qualify them for poverty programs. They're the companies getting rich off them. Now listen to these companies. Driving down Cleveland Avenue in less than 4:40 seconds, you come across endless home health companies. Capital Home Health, Continental Home Health, Dynamic Home Health Care, Ohio Senior Home Health Care. Entire buildings throughout the city are filled entirely with what appear to be identical businesses. The enormous complex pictured below, and there's a picture in the article, is 6161 Bush Blvd. Its lack of windows would be a problem for most office buildings, but there is almost no one in this one. What's inside is 94, 94 different companies signed up to bill Medicaid, each with a tiny office often marked with a sheet of paper proclaiming some generic company name ending in Home Health llc. And sometimes this is particularly funny. Another piece of paper claiming the employees had just stepped out for a break. Mind you, they've all stepped out for a break and they never come back. Yeah, this building alone billed taxpayers $66 million in the span of a few years, the records show. Pick the owner of a Columbus home health care company at random and look them up on public record records. You're likely to go down an endless rabbit hole. Years of unpaid taxes and debts, sometimes criminal records, and an astonishing number of LLCs created in other industries. As if the millions they make from Medicaid are just a side gig. We went down several of those rabbit holes. In the coming days, you'll meet and I'm going to give you several of these examples. Every one of these is going to you off. These are real people, or at least real fake people in Ohio. Number one, a politician who founded an $11 million home health care company that he appeared to run part time without even mentioning it in his political biography, who then funded his campaign. He funded his campaign with donations from other home health care owners. So this is a guy robbing a million. $11 Million. He's hiding it because obviously he's embarrassed about it. And he's relying on other fraudsters to fund his political operation. This is the shameless grift, the cycle of thievery that we're seeing over and over again. All right, here's another one. Number two, a woman who reinvented her janitorial llc. So she had a janitorial company as a, quote, health provider. Then she billed Medicaid. What do you think she billed Medicaid? The very first month she went from being a janitorial company to health provider,

[Ben Ferguson]

a good Somali mentor. And you go from the toilet cleaning, you know, job to then. And sorry, I got the hiccups now, but if you go from a toilet cleaning job to then you go to home health care, like, sure, your first month and startup would be, I don't know, five grand, eight grand maybe. I know I'm wrong, right?

[Ted Cruz]

Nearly 100 grand.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, 100 grand. First month. First month like that is one heck of a startup right there, folks.

[Ted Cruz]

All right, here's another one. Number three, by the way, you've got the hiccups. We're going to send a home health care provider. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben Ferguson]

Can I make 100 grand?

[Guest 1]

I'll take it.

[Ted Cruz]

That would be your children and they're going to go punch you in the stomach till you stop hiccupping.

[Ben Ferguson]

I like this. I like this plan. As long as I get paid, it's fine. I want to kick back here.

[Ted Cruz]

Or at least golf sponsorships.

[Ben Ferguson]

There you go.

[Ted Cruz]

Number three, a landlord who bought airplanes after renting space to hundreds of home health care companies that build Medicaid. A quarter of a billion dollars. Quarter of a billion. 250 million. Number four, a man who went to prison for Medicaid fraud but told the government he was too broke to pay restitution while his neighbors and associates provide over a poverty program empire. And number five, an accountant who has lost his license for stealing public funds, then opened a $7 million home health care company using the address of a convicted money launderers teenage son. Now, I gotta say, Ben, if you're listening to this, if you're not pissed

[Ben Ferguson]

off, that's impressive you're not paying attention. I mean, Sarah, this story really brings us back to even a bigger point, and that is this is prop. Probably nationwide. Like what we're witnessing, what we're saying. This is going to end up being fraud at different levels, probably in every state in America because you're still dealing with fraud through the federal government. So you can set up shop anywhere because it's not like it's a lot of state oversight here.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, listen, this is brazen. These are fraudsters who believe no politician will ever call them to account. No government employee will ever examine the facts. No prosecutor will look at it and they're quite confident that the press will never examine it. These are not geniuses. Let me read a little more from the story. These are not. In fact, here's the point I was just making. These are not business geniuses, nor even people with any training or specialty in the health field. They have often failed at a variety of businesses before suddenly becoming millionaires in home health care. Sometimes a company will have a full roster of clients in his very first month, making one wonder where the clients come from. The companies don't have websites or appear to advertise. They can't stand out from their thousands of rivals based on price unless they pay kickbacks because the government pays the same to everyone. Nearly every owner of a health care company in Columbus appears to be foreign. Let me repeat that because that's a stunning statement. Nearly every owner of a home health care company in Columbus appears to be foreign. They live in a parallel society where every associate and public records also has a foreign name and all their business transactions are conducted with other foreigners. When we asked one what home health care companies did, one man threatened journalists. Who cares? Do you guys pay my bills? I'm going to tell everybody you guys are racists. The government cannot meaningfully monitor all the people it writes million dollar checks to in Columbus. They all share combinations of just a few names like Ahmed, Muhammad and Muhammad Ahmed. How is this not satire? By the way, I'm reading actual news documents reviewed by the Daily Wire show individuals will spell their own name multiple different ways within a single document. Let me repeat that again. Someone spells the name Bean Ferguson. Yeah. Ban For Fergie. Fergie Son. Like, like how many. How do you misspell your name multiple times in a document?

[Ben Ferguson]

And backwards. Sometimes it was Ben Ferguson. It was Ferguson Ben. Like it was Ted Cruz.

[Ted Cruz]

And then Cruise Ted, you know, Penelope Cruz, Tom Cruise. Cruise Control. Like, like every variant you can come with. And many of them list their birthdays as January 1st because their birthdays are unknown. The business model is simple. A 40 year old Somali immigrant gets paid for spending time with and maybe cooking for his own 65 year old mother. The middleman is one of thousands of home health firms that have the NPI number necessary to bill Medicaid. The 40 year old becomes a, quote, employee of that company, but has no clients other than his mother. There is no way to verify whether he actually provided the quote services unless his own mother is willing to testify against him. This poverty program is different from things like food stamps because it has no monetary cap and its extent is decided not by politicians but by any doctor willing to sign a form saying you could use some help around the house. It only takes one doctor who will say yes to churn out enough forms to bankrupt a state.

[Ben Ferguson]

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[Ted Cruz]

For years, efforts to rein in waste have nibbled around the edges shaving off a million here and a million there. While skeptics and liberals argued that the cost cutting exercise was pointless because the lion's share of federal spending was Locked up in, quote, non discretionary spending like health care. The implication was that there was no waste in that category and nothing that could be done about it. Even as the nation careened towards insolvency, that premise couldn't be more wrong. This blatant waste happened within miles of the Ohio state Capitol where Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, and his appointees run the state. In an era of artificial intelligence, the Medicaid system has seemed disinterested in even the most obvious red flags. Perhaps that's because it's largely run by states, but with half or more of the bill being footed by the federal taxpayers, the Trump administration is now turning its sights to Medicaid fraud with a task force led by the Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Vice President J.D. vance. They may want to start with Vance's home state. I gotta say, look, this is stunning and it is a pattern. It's not confined to Minnesota, it's not confined to Ohio. This is a pattern of theft across the country and we need to have vigorous efforts. I want to commend the Trump administration. The Department of Justice is going after this fraud. HHS is going after this fraud. We're beginning to see accountability. And I want to thank the Daily Wire for doing some reporting. Let me ask, where the hell is cnn? Abc, NBC? CBS is doing a little bit, but Washington Post, New York Times, are there actual supporters?

[Ben Ferguson]

The hardcore investigative journalists are not doing any of this journalism. This is like the conservative advocates out there that are doing this job. The Nick Shirley's are doing this job. No one in the mainstream media is breaking this story.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, we covered previously on this podcast how cnn, when the story broke in Minnesota, they decided to check it. So they called these quote, childcare agencies and they said, hi, this is CNN calling, are you engaged in fraud? And they said no. And they said, oh, okay, thank you and hung up. That's what they called reporting. Yeah, the last I checked, if you call criminals and ask them if they're committing crimes, most of them are going to tell you no. And by the way, CNN knows that. The reporters know that, the producer knows that, the executive producer knows that. Everyone up and down the line knows that they know how to actually investigate a story. It's just that the media doesn't care about this story. I commend the Daily Wire. We're going to keep covering this and I think this is just the tip of the iceberg on what's happening.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, I agree. And it's going to be other types of fraud that we Talked about at the beginning of the show. We're going to keep covering it. NZ stories break. We will have it here. I hope you'll take this and share it, by the way, because it's so important that we get it out there.

[Ted Cruz]

But by the way, Ben, I will tell you, you know, my dad, he's 87 years old. My dad's kind of a badass. What, what my father says, he says in 87 years, he's never hiccuped more than once.

[Ben Ferguson]

See, that's, that's fake news.

[Ted Cruz]

I'm just telling you, my father, look, when I was in high school, if I would get a 99 on a test, my dad would say, why didn't you get 100? And he would say, I'm not meaning to be mean, but my father would say to me, if you hiccup twice, it's a sign of weakness. Because if you hiccup once, you just need to decide, don't do it again.

[Ben Ferguson]

Don't do it again. Yeah, I'm working on that. I'm pretty sure it's the medication that says a side effect is hiccup. That's what I looked at. So I'm doing, I'm doing the best I can here, sir. I'm doing the best I can.

[Ted Cruz]

I'll confess, I failed my father's standard of never hiccup more than once. But if I'm hiccuping, usually if I take a glass of water and just drink the whole thing uninterrupted, it goes away.

[Ben Ferguson]

So we paused the show earlier. People don't know this because we were trying to get rid of the hiccups. We tried everything during the break, so we just. It is what it is at this point. You can always go back and give me a hard time for this one.

[Ted Cruz]

It's easy.

[Ben Ferguson]

It's easy. I want to take a moment to tell you about an organization that is called Americans United for Life. ALU is a non profit law firm and advocacy group that was founded in 1971, two years before Roe established the constitutional right to an abortion, before fetal viability. With the US Supreme Court's decision and Dobbs v. Jackson and the Women's Health organization overturning its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade. The nonprofit law firm has seen its biggest victory yet. Now there are Democrats and liberals that are fighting back. And that's where you and I have the opportunity to overturn pro abortion laws and advance pro life legislation that attacks the most vulnerable in our society. From the womb to the tomb. Together we can stand side by side and we can shape the future of our nation through life affirming legislation in every state. And that is where Your monthly gift $25 genuinely helps to advance pro life legislation desperately needed in 38 states to help pass pro life legislation to defend Life for America's 250th birthday. Every gift they receive will be matched 2x up until $200,000. You can donate securely right now at alu.org verdict that's a U L.org verdict aul.org verdict Sponsored by Americans United for Life. All right, Senator, let's move to Tucker Carlson. He did an interview and it couldn't have gotten worse for him with the New York Times. I've said this before, some disagree with me. I, I think the demise of Tucker Carlson is happening in real time. I think his audience is disappearing very quickly. I think these types of interviews do incredible damage to his integrity, his character. And, and these interviews just show how unhinged he is, which we've been talking about for quite some time. He's also still obsessed with you and had something very interesting to say about you in this New York Times interview as well.

[Guest 1]

Who do you think is more morally repulsive? Ted Cruz.

[Guest 2]

Who do you think is more morally repulsive?

[Guest 1]

Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz is a sitting US Senator who has called for the killing of people who did nothing wrong. Whole populations who advocated for this war. Nick Fuentes is like a kid. He's like 26 or 70. He has no power except his words. Here you have a public official who we pay, who has actual power, who's voting for things, who's making policy decisions. And those decisions would include, in fact, they are focused on the murder of people who did nothing wrong. And yet no one thinks it's a big deal. What's just totally fine. I mean, if there's tape of Nick Fuentes saying we should kill people because we hate their parents or it's okay to kill children, I would love to see the tape because that's disgusting and that's basically the entire US Senate does every single day and no one notices. Nick Fuentes said something naughty that I disagreed with. He made fun of things that I don't think I would ever make fun of.

[Guest 2]

He's a white nationalist who was denied the Holocaust. And what I will say, but is

[Guest 1]

that worse than killing kids?

[Guest 2]

From my understanding of my own, you know, I was just in Germany recently and, you know, it was such a good reminder that the Holocaust didn't start with the gassing of Jews. It started with the dehumanization of Jews. It was language that was used. And again, that is what it.

[Ted Cruz]

I couldn't agree more.

[Guest 1]

And that's why when you have a US Senator, a member of Congress, a US Ambassador waving away civilian deaths as if they don't matter, that's the language of genocide which results. And this is the lesson of the Holocaust in genocide itself. And it has. So the lesson for me really watching all of this is that this can happen in civilized countries. In all human beings. There is the capacity to ignore the evil right in front of you. And my point is it's happening right now. And my job, to the extent I have one, I don't really have a job, but I just want to remind people that we're all capable of that, including me, and that we're watching it right now. And if you think that Nick Fuentes is a greater threat to other human beings than Ted Cruz, I would love

[Guest 2]

to know how I can imagine people hearing this and thinking you are soft pedaling Nick Fuentes. You are apologizing.

[Guest 1]

I'm hardly soft peddling Nick Fuentes. I'm trying to awaken people to killing of innocents in our midst, which we are not only encouraged to ignore, but really told to ignore on pain of being denounced. And I'm just saying. No, I'm not doing that.

[Ben Ferguson]

Senator. Nick Fuentes is a Holocaust denier.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah, but that doesn't even touch it. Let's start with the fact that this loon, I think he brought me up eight or nine times in that interview. Apparently I am living completely rent free in his brain and every word he's saying is a brazen lie. I am 55 years old. Never once have I called for the murder of innocence. Never once have I called for the murder of children. By the way, he claims that I do that. He claims that the entire US Senate does that. And it's just. It's at a point where it's a pathological lie. There's no basis in fact, there's no evidence. He just says it. He just asserts it. And he knows he's lying. He doesn't care. He's lying. By the way, his defense of Nick Fuentes as well. Nick Fuentes said something naughty. Naughty. Okay, here's what Nick Fuentes said. He said Hitler was right. Hitler was very, very cool. I agree with Hitler. On Tucker Show, Nick Fuentes said his mission in life is to defeat global Jewry. That's not something naughty. That is a rabid Nazi bigot. He Also said Nick Fuentes also said that he celebrates Stalin's birthday every year. Tucker nodded approvingly. And by the way, Tucker, there's a reason why Tucker is celebrating Nick Fuentes. Tucker has gone to the point now of embracing Nazis. It's not just Nick Fuentes who's an open Nazi. Tucker had one, had one lunatic professor on his show who said that Winston Churchill was the villain of World War II. And another lunatic professor on his show who said there's a good argument the Americans should have supported the Nazis in World War II. No, there's not. But Tucker is on a mission. And I believe at this point, I, I cannot prove it, but I believe Tucker is being compensated, is being paid by Qatar or other foreign nations. He is apologizing for Islamists. He is apologizing for Sharia. He is apologizing for America haters. He is attacking Trump every day. He is attacking Israel, he's attacking Jews. He knows he's lying about me. But his mission is also to normalize Nazis. By the way, one of the things he said this week is Graham Platner, the lunatic Democrat nominee or likely nominee, almost inevitable nominee in Maine for Senate, who is a self described communist, Graham Platner says I am a communist. And who has not just a Nazi tattoo on his chest, but a Totenkampf, which is the tattoo of the SS in the death chambers of the concentration camps. You know what Tucker Carlson said? Oh, I want to interview Graham Platner. I'm sure they do. Maybe they have matching Nazi tattoos. I don't know what tattoos. Tucker Carlson said, as Tucker would say, I'm just asking questions. But apparently if you're a Nazi, if you say Sig Heil, Tucker wants to elevate you. And I got to say, and not

[Ben Ferguson]

just elevate you, normalize you, make it go away.

[Ted Cruz]

And listen, by the way, when you lie about people, you notice his, his whole diatribe about me. He provided no evidence what I just listed about Tucker. I, I can give you the episodes where he said every one of those things. Those are objective facts. But here's so, so Tucker is now a professional liar who lives without facts. And I want you to listen to this exchange. And, and, and if you're watching on YouTube, it's even better if you watch it because it's not just me. Tucker has decided he hates America. He hates Donald Trump, he hates Jews, he hates capitalism. He had this other lunatic on his show who said that Jesus hated capitalism and Jesus was a socialist. He is attacked. He is all right. I want you to listen to him being confronted over his argument that Donald Trump is the Antichrist. This is what Tucker has argued. And when he's confronted with his own words, he just flat out lies.

[Guest 1]

Listen, what I was saying, which is you cannot mock other people's gods and put yourself in their place, period. That is a deal killer for me. That's worse than the war with Iran, in my opinion.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Guest 2]

But I ask because, you know, you've been talking on your show about whether Trump is the Antichrist.

[Guest 1]

I have not said that.

[Guest 2]

On your show, the day after Easter, you noted he did not put his hand on the Bible during his swearing and ceremony as president. You said, and I'm quoting, maybe he didn't put his hand on the Bible because he affirmatively rejects what's inside that book. And then on a recent show, you went further, saying, here's a leader who's mocking the gods of his ancestors, mocking the God of gods and exalting himself above them. Could this be the Antichrist?

[Guest 1]

I actually did not say, could this be the Antichrist? Here's a leader who's mocking the gods of his ancestors, mocking the God of gods and exalting himself above them. Could this be the Antichrist? Well, who knows? I don't know where that comes from, but I know that those words never left my lips because I'm not sure I fully understand what the Antichrist is. If there's just one. I. I actually tried to understand it. I may have said some are asking that. I'm not weighing in on that because I don't understand it. Just to be told no.

[Guest 2]

In Revelations, obviously, the center, he said

[Ben Ferguson]

that, like, 15 days ago when the interview took place. This was, by the way, a year ago.

[Ted Cruz]

He says, I may have said some are asking. He didn't say that she played what he said she played verbatim what he said. He asked very directly, is Donald J. Trump the Antichrist? Look, I'm willing to answer that, no. I don't believe President Trump is the Antichrist. But. But Tucker doesn't live in the world of facts. He doesn't live where any words he says matter and the words he's saying. So there's good news and bad news. The bad news is the words he's saying are having really serious negative consequences. He is pushing antisemitism. He's pushing Jew hate every day, like, every week. His show focuses on how the Jews are responsible for everything wrong in the world, but he's also pushing America hate. He's pushing How America's terrible. He's pushing Trump hate. He has said he regrets supporting Trump. He wished Trump had lost. I mean, that's.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, he said to his brother, it was, it was like this sad moment where they're like, we, we are, we are going to be held accountable for helping this man win the White House. Like, so the good news is their lives.

[Ted Cruz]

So the good news is Tucker is becoming more and more irrelevant each and every day. He's really talented. He's a charming, charismatic guy. Even when he's lying to you, he's like Obi Wan Kenobi in Star wars going, these are not the drones you're looking for. He just flat out lies. But he's charming and good at it. But the good news is he is becoming so irrelevant right now. And listen, I hope he has a really nice home in Qatar. By the way, you may not know this, but he bragged that he has bought a home in Qatar. He also has repeatedly praised the Ayatollah, the President of Iran. He's praised Maduro, he's praised Mandami. Like, if you're a Hitler, if you're Hitler, if you're a Hitler lover, if you're a communist, if you're a leftist, if you are, if you are an America hater, if you're an Islamist, if you're an Ayatollah, Tucker Carlson loves you. If you're actually an American who believes in free enterprise, who believes in America, who believes in America first, Tucker hates your guts and his mission is to attack you. And I think that's why more and more people are moving away from at this point. It's so disconnected from reality that it's just kind of sad.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, it really is. Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Hit that subscribe or auto download button wherever you get your podcast. Hopefully I won't have the hiccups in the next episode. The center and I will see you back here on Friday morning.

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[Ted Cruz]

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[Ben Ferguson]

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