Speaker 1: And welcome one and all to the Big Podcast on
this Tuesday. Today is the thirtieth day of December, Year
of Our Lord, twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan.
So yeah, things are starting to feel like we're getting
close to the end of the year. Like tomorrow, we've
got oh my gosh, the NYPD and the outgoing Mayor
of New York, Eric Adams, held a big news conference
earlier today and they said they're going to have thousands
of police officers in Times Square tomorrow night. They've got snipers,
they've got dogs as the bomb sniffing dogs, they've got
the boat patrols out in the rivers. So anyway, they're
all geared up for It's sad, isn't it, But that's
what they have to be prepared for, that sort of thing.
So as we get ready to wrap up the calendar
for twenty twenty five, there's still a lot of things
to go over. One of them that we've only mentioned,
we really haven't dug in. I think this is going
to be a story that will be a twenty twenty
six story for sure, and that is the Minnesota fraud.
And I keep saying that it's probably as much as
that is where the center of all this government fraud is,
it really probably is going on in a number of
states besides Minnesota. I look, I go back to COVID,
and I know only because I used to live there
many years ago. But in California they were giving away
billions of dollars in fraud. I don't think they ever
got it back. People that were applying for unemployment benefits
for COVID, honey, you name it, they got it. But
this thing is getting to be where they're going to
go after the governor Tim Walls of Minnesota and also
Keith Ellison, who is their attorney general, and see where
the chips fall. But I think it will go beyond that.
Pete Seat, who was a former George W. Bush administration guy,
had this about the fact they're going to try to
impeach Tim Walls.
Speaker 2: It absolutely should pose a political threat to Tim Wall's. Look,
this is a sophisticated orchestrated, multi year scheme to defraud
the people of Minnesota and American taxpayers. Why it matters
to Tim Walls is he has known about it. He
is not denying that this fraud took place. He is
now on defense he's in damage control mode, trying to
say that he's done his part. He tried to do
something about this. He clearly didn't do enough. I think
we're up to ninety two people who have been charged
with crimes. Now something like sixty or seventy of them
have been convicted, and he is going to face a
political reckoning, whether that is having to resign, being forced
to resign, or finding himself in a really really difficult
reelection campaign next year.
Speaker 1: So what you heard there was they've been prosecuting people
and finding him guilty and putting him in jail for
a few years anyway, So this isn't something brand new.
And so Tom Emmers is the congressman from the Minneapolis area,
and Jason Shavitz, who is a former congressman from Utah
who's retired, well, he resigned from Congress. He's now trying
to be a Fox announcer. He's on as a guest
speaker every so often, so he's filling in for somebody
because of the holidays, and he has Tom Emmers on
to ask about all of this fraud in Minnesota. And
I'll set it up this way, if you think about it,
listen to the interview that Shavits has with Tom Emmers,
and you would think that Tom Emmers it would dawn
on him. Maybe he's not that bright, but I mean
he he's been a member of the political party, political
class in Minnesota for a number of years, and he's
acting like, well, the politicians in Minnesota need to be
responsible and he's one of them. Did he not notice
any of this going on as a representative of the
people in one part of Minnesota? And in this interview,
listen because Jason Shavin's will well, I'll set this. Listen
to the first part and then Jason Schaffin's basically asked
him what I just told you is, why didn't anybody
from Congress wink wink you do anything about this?
Speaker 3: Look, he should resign. He's a total embarrassment. Jason, it's
great to be with you. I it wasn't that long
ago that we served together, So again, happy for your
success on this deal. Tim Walls, you look at Nick Shirley,
you were reporting on his video, Jason, Nick Shirley found
more fraud in one day than Tim Walls has found
in seven years. It's absolutely criminal what's been happening. Not
only is it the two hundred and fifty million dollars,
largest pandemic fraud case in the country. But you're dealing
with housing stabilization fraud. They created this program back in
twenty twenty, Jason. It was two million dollars a year.
That's what the estimate was. Guess what. They shut it
down last October after they'd sucked out one hundred and
sixty one million dollars, and it was shut down because
of fraud. You're talking about childcare centers. There's autism. Eighty
autism centers are under investigation. And on the Somali issue,
all right, not all Somalis are criminals, I'll give you that,
but ninety percent of the people being charged with these crimes, Jason,
are from the Somali community. Tim Walls and our former
colleague who's now our Attorney General, Keith Ellison, have looked
the other way for seven years and allowed billions of
dollars of Minnesota tax payer money to be built out
of Minnesota, and frankly, a lot of it has gone
back to Somalia, to El Shabbah, the terrorist organization in Somalia.
Speaker 1: I'm listening to him and he's blaming all the politicians
and a lot of this was federal money that came
from Washington that went to Minnesota. I'm sure he was
out at parades and other political events saying, look a
look at look what I got for you, all this money,
he said. Everybody kept looking the other way. What about him?
He's a major politician in the state of Minnesota. It
just so happens he'd be a congressman. So his office, Yes,
he has an office in Minnesota, has an office in Washington.
Speaker 3: D C.
Speaker 1: But he is so politically bent that he forgets that
instead of blaming the Democrat politicians, he was a politician
and still is a politician in Minnesota. Listened to the
way that Jason Shavin's basically goes, well, weren't you slash
Congress supposed to be watching over this money?
Speaker 4: Congressman? Though, I got to say candidly, it begs the
question about Congress because if this has been going on
for seven years, and the FBI director Cash bettellas that
has been going on, why does the United States keep
funding it? Why does the United States Congress? How come
they're not using the power of the purse to say no,
we had the first case, you're not going to get it.
Speaker 5: But you know what, when you do.
Speaker 4: Continue resolution, after continuing resolution, billions of dollars kept going
to Minnesota.
Speaker 3: Why the Republicans in the House, and I would argue
the Senate, although I serve in the House would agree
with you, Jason. It's one of the reasons that in
the Working Families Tax Cut Act, also known as the
Big Beautiful Bill, we started to put some serious reforms
on Medicaid because we know that states are abusing it,
and we also have known about this fraud issue. I
got to tell you, Jason, we've been trying to sound
the alarm on this for the past three years. It's
just been growing exponentially. It actually took our President Donald J.
Trump to bring the issue national attention before anybody started
reporting on it. So thanks to you and others at Fox,
and thanks to the other outlets that are actually finally
shedding light on this and even Nick Shirley, over one
hundred and ten million people have already viewed that video.
Speaker 4: And I think there are people. Look, they're living in
Minnesota save Rochester, and they're getting by on a Social
Security check that's eight hundred, maybe one thousand dollars a month.
I guess it begs the question, why is it that
Nick Shirley, in like one visit, can go figure this out?
And why is it the next day somebody in handcuffs
that we're going to sick hundreds of thimes. We had
Department of Justice one hundred and ten thousand people, Homeland
Security two hundred and forty five thousand, Health and Human Services,
hundreds of thousands of people, and you got one dude
who's in its twenties who can go figure this out.
And nobody understands why the next day these people aren't
arrested and charged with a crime.
Speaker 3: Look, this has been going on for a decade. We
tried to address this problem. When I first got to Congress,
I was working with now the Attorney General, Keith Ellison.
We recognized almost immediately that they were not sincere about
assimilating into our communities and following the laws Jason. So
we started back in twenty fifteen sponsoring a law that
would require the Congress to have oversight over refugee resettlement
instead of the administration. We followed that up in twenty
sixteen trying to defund Homeland Security from using taxpayer dollars
to bring Somali immigrants to this country without being vetted
by the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence. And
we've been sending letter after letter trying to raise the
flag on this thing. Finally it's getting reported. The US
Attorney in Many in Minnesota estimates this fraud Jason could
go to nine billion dollars in Minnesota. And if it's
happening here, it's happening in other places as well.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll give him that. I suspect it probably is
happening in other states as well. But I still keep
going back to and he's, you know, fine, he doesn't
like the Somali's and he's trying to do so. He
says it's been going on for ten years. If he
knows it's been going on for ten years, and he's
been in Congress for most of that period, why hasn't
he done anything. He's blaming the governor, he's blaming the
attorney general. And I'm sorry, but his excuse is about, well,
I've been working on this. Obviously. Tom Emers is not
the brightest guy in town to go on national television
and brag about how he's been watching this for ten
years when he was able to do nothing. There's more
to this. By the way, here's a woman who runs
what she run. Her name is Tiki Brown, and she
runs the Minnesota Department of Children, and she says the
payments are still coming.
Speaker 6: Each of the facilities mentioned in the video has been
visited at least once in the last six months as
part of our typical licensing process. For the current childcare
centers that have been named in the video, we have
not paused. There isn't a current pause on any of
their payments. As we gain more information from the folks
that are out visiting today and gathering additional information, that
may change, but currently there is no pause on any
of the those individual centers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they check on these places every six months,
but for some reason, the payments haven't stopped them and they're
they're looking into it. That's what they're doing there. They're
looking into it. In meantime, the payments are still coming
from Washington to Minnesota or these fraudulent outfits. Jonathan Turley
as this comment.
Speaker 7: Well, this surge of federal resources into Minnesota is going
to help a great deal.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: The fact is you can't have this extensive level of
alleged fraud without interstate criminal activity. Most of this is interstate.
They're using wires and phones, and they're transporting out of state,
So the Feds have a basis go in there. In
addition to the fact that some of this is playing
with federal money. You know, if Minnesota wants to burn billions,
then do that, if that's what they want to do,
but they can't do that if it's a federal crime.
And they sure can't do that with federal money. And
when Governor Wall says, well, you know, I've been trying
to get more authority. Fraud's been illegal for a long time.
I mean you've been probably and there have been some
prosecutions in the past. This isn't a lack of authority.
This appears to be a lack of interest, impulse, a
lack of effort by state regulators and prosecutors. So we'll
see what the Feds come up with here. But Minnesota
is really looking at a mountain of hurt coming down
on him because this is getting worse by the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally's got it right that everybody said, oh, I
need more authority. Remember Joe Biden said he needed more
authority to control the border and wasn't necessary. Donald Trump
got the border controlled in no time. But everybody's pointing
the finger and nobody's doing anything about it, and the
money is still going, still going to these fraudulent operations,
and nobody is such classic government politician behavior. They're just
not curious about it. And yet this they keep referring to,
this Nick Shirley, who his video has one hundred million
views and he's a twenty year old kid, and he said,
in these people on his video, anybody can see the
rampant fraud going on in Minnesota. So he got a
camera and went around in video the fraud. So why
did the governor not know anything about this? Or the
attorney general or I mean, go down the list, the
mayor of Minneapolis, the Congressman Tom Emmers, pretending like it's
all the smalies they're terrible. Well they probably it is
the smallies, a lot of them. But he's trying to
wash his hands by blaming somebody else. I don't think so.
So speaking of crazy politicians, well, we don't know yet.
We'll give the guy a chance, but I'm I'm concerned.
The Zoran mom Donnie will be the mayor of New
York at twelve one am on January first, they are
going to have a ceremony I don't know, in the
middle of Yeah, it's in the middle of the night.
Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York State, will
be the one that will handle this wearing inn of
Zoran Mondanni. Then they're going to have I don't have
the time on it, but later when everybody is up
and around, they're going to have a big party. And
the person who's going to introduce mom Donnie to the
people will be none other than aoc And then so
she's kind of the lead off to get the thing going.
And then the person that will actually introduce Soron Mondami
as the new mayor of New York will be none
other than Bernie Sanders. So it's all Socialists all the time.
And that it kicks off on January first. Harry, who
looks into lots of different things. I find him interesting.
He's very good at what he does. And he said, ma'am,
Donnie is more popular now than ever, but he hasn't
started governing yet.
Speaker 8: Look, if we look at how New Yorkers, New York
City folks a feeling about Zoro Mandani, look at this,
up like a rocket, higher and higher, as Jackie Wilson,
a great singer, used to say, right, Mamdannie's net Faber
rating in New York City in September it was plus
fourteen points. Look at where we are now plus thirty
eight points. That's a climb if you do the man quickly,
right with me? Right here is thirty eight minus fourteen.
That's a rise of twenty four points in the positive direction.
As I said, up like a rocket. New York City
voters have never felt better about the man that they
elected to lead this city. Come twenty twenty six, he
is quite the popular dude right now. Yeah, okay, so
right now, you know we're talking about the honeymoon period
right for Zarram Mamdani very much on the Jackie Gleeson
State of Mind and another show that was based in
New York City and net favorit rating. Let's look at
New York State. Right, you have New York City and
then you wind it out to New York State. Right,
a lot of Republican state. Why we're hoping to run
against Zoramndan. But look at this, zero Mandani plus fifteen
points on the net FAVORUEB rating statewide. That's I believe
the highest it's ever been.
Speaker 1: So Mondani promised all kinds of things. He said, universal childcare, freezing,
increases in rent, stabilized apartments, fast and free city buses,
and five city controlled supermarkets. So how do the people
feel about that?
Speaker 8: This was a very controversial, very controversial thing. But look
at this. New York City voters on free buses by
taxing millionaires and billionaires more. Look at this, fifty percent
supported in New York City compared to forty one percent
who oppose it. Now here's the key thing, right, we're
talking about millionaires, billionaires. The whole idea, will there be
this rush of billionaires to leave New York? Will there
be this rush? Well, take a look at the prediction
market the chance at eight or more billionaires leaving New
York City by the middle of next year. Look at that,
it's just twenty one percent high. It is not very high.
What we're seeing is that people who are putting their
money where their mouth is think that the billionaires are
full of this. They're full of talk, but they're not
going to be able to walk the walk.
Speaker 1: So this isn't unique to New York City. I keep
track of what's going on. In my hometown of Seattle, Washington,
and the state of Washington, for the if, they have
had no income tax, and now they're proposing a new
income tax for people that are millionaires. And in the
state of California, where I live for a long time,
there's a proposal for a wealth tax in the state
of California. And all of these proposals come with the
caveat that all people of the wealthy will leave, and
then the status sticians come along and say, nah, they
really don't. They won't leave, So we'll see what happens.
But this has always been I've talked about this forever.
Taxing the wealthy is a very popular item. Whenever people
were asked, do you want to tax the wealthy more?
The answer is a heavy yes. I don't because most
people are aren't good, don't They don't think they're wealthy,
so they're willing to tax the other guy. But the
fascinating part about it is when you start taxing the wealthy,
somehow that tax works its way down into the not
so wealthy. But that's what's going on New York, State
of Washington, and also the state of California. All getting
their grubby little tax hands already for more taxes on
the rich. So in other news, Tyler Robinson, the guy
that has been charged with shooting in killing Charlie Kirk,
has had a hearing a couple days ago, and in
that particular hearing, the judge released some of the closed
door transcript because they were doing things behind the scenes.
And here's a little reaction to I mean this. I
know that he needs his day in court, and that's
the way our system works. But this is such an
open and shut case. There is no question that he
shot and killed an innocent man, Charlie Kirk, but they're
going to drag this thing out for a long time.
Here's the judge in the case being super duper careful.
Speaker 9: The court need not seal the entire transcript and audio
of the October twenty toward twenty twenty five hearing to
protect the safety interests of all those involved. Redocting selective
court selective portions of transcript and the audio that referenced
security measures will serve safety interests while allowing for as
much public access to the remainder of the record as possible.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, they're going to release a lot
of the transcript and a lot of the audio, but
not all of it. And they're doing this silly business
about they can't have any video or photos of the
guy in shackles, but they have him in shackles, and
the jury can see that he's going to well well,
and the jury's selected that they will see him in shackles.
So it's a weird dance that the court is going
through for a guy that is clearly, clearly, clearly guilty.
I know he needs a day in court, and I
know that he wants a trial by jury. He's entitled
to that, but it just seems odd to me. Paul Morrow,
former NYPD guy ways in so far he seems to
be quite deliberative. He's trying to take all the equities
in play. He's being very transparent with his own reasoning.
He's laying it out.
Speaker 10: Because look, in courtroom, anybody's been in the courtroom dealing
with a judge, they have what's called plenary power. They
run the show. He can just give a statement and
that's it. He's making sure he's telegraphing to everybody. I'm
considering your concerns. He's very aware, clearly of all the
scrutiny that's on this case. I was out there from
you know, you can feel it. There's all the media there,
et cetera. There's another player in this though, aside from
the two sides of the case, is the media, and
the media is who's pulling at this and wants the transcript,
wants the audio. That's a consideration the judge has to
take into account here as well, And so he's making
it clear that he's going to do everything he can
to thread this needle to make sure the case holds
up on appeal, that it's a fair hearing for Tyler Robinson,
that the public gets to hear as much of this
as he can do. I think all of this augurs
that he is going to allow cameras in the courtroom
to some degree, and maybe a pro described feed that
only captures certain areas, going to make sure you don't
see the jurors, et cetera. And there's actually an internal
sort of tension in this already because he has said
that Tyler Robinson can appear in the street close but shackled,
but at the same time he has said you can't
show him shackled. So the media is going to have
to thread that needle because if he's shackled below he
goes to scratch his face, you're going to make sure
you cut the feet. So there are all these things
blowing through this, and it's the judge's job to make
sure this whole three ring circus goes smoothly.
Speaker 1: That's what it will be, a three ring circus. It's
going to be a circus. And don't you find it
to be kind of ghoulish? Oh, let's get all the
details about the the murder of Charlie Kirk. I think
we know we all. I mean, if you didn't see
it live, you could you can see it on take
your pick online where you can go watch Charlie Kirk
be murdered. So what more do you need have? Give
the guy his day in court and send him away.
Another hearing that is going on, which also is just
the opposite this. This is the DC bomber guy, the
guy they wanna be DC bomber guy, the guy that
took him five years but they found him. And congratulations
to Dan Bongino. When he was he's going to be
leaving the FBI next week, but this was his baby.
He was going to find out who that guy was
and he found out that it's this young man who
is autistic, and well, one argument is, well, he hasn't
harmed anybody in the last five years, so what's the
big deal. Well, here's Joey Jackson, big criminal defense lawyer
weighing in.
Speaker 5: What happens is that initially, you know, when he was
interviewed by investigators, denying everything and then ultimately went into
and spoke with them. Any defense attorney, you're going to
challenge the statements. You're going to challenge the voluntary nature
of the statements. You're going to challenge whether or not
he waived the right to counsel, whether there was a
goodsodial interrogation, etc. But I think the fact that there
is a you know, potential autism there or a mental
state that could be altered in some way, that is
certainly going to be challenged at the end of the day.
Though it's not only about the statements, which are very important, okay,
very important, because they go to motive. They go to
his disillusionment with the election, his disillusionment with both parties,
his disillusionment Sarah with who's in charge. But you have
to remember that in addition to statements, there's other evidence
which is very compelling, like what like the fact that
they found components of pipe arms in his home pursuing
to a search warrant, like components of pipe bombs in
the car, and like the tracking of him over the
course of time. This was a five year investigation, So
statements are always valuable to an investigation, but there's often
other information which buttresses the real you know, the nature
of the case, the value of the case, and the
weight of the case that investigators have against yay Buyer's
remorses doesn't really help you. The fact is is that
prosecutors are saying that they did not go off. These
devices predicated upon luck, not predicated upon intent. They were
set there, they were set for sixty minutes, and you know,
now he's really sorry about that, and you know he
should be. But the fact that they didn't go off
and he now you know, seems to be somewhat apologetic
about that, is not going to really enhance his chances
at trial. It's all going to be about the facts
and the evidence. And remember he's facing up to twenty
years as a result of this alleged transgression.
Speaker 1: So let's see, if you commit a crime, and you say, well,
I actually am autistic, so therefore you should let me off.
I don't think that's going to work. But there's another
angle to this. Here's Ellie Honig responding to the question
about since President Trump gave a pardon to everybody that
was involved with the jan sixth event, riot, whatever you
want to call it, what was this guy part of that?
Part of that pardon.
Speaker 11: So this is so interesting to watch for this, it
would not surprise me to see this defendant, mister Cole,
his lawyer, argue at some point that he should be
covered by Trump's pardon of all the people related to
January sixth. If you look at the pardon, it says
it applies to anyone who is convicted of offence's honor
about January sixth around the Capitol building. Right now, the
argument is going to be from the defense team, Well,
he had the same purpose as the people who stormed
the Capitol. They all believe the election was stolen. He
plants the bombs just a few hundred yards away from
the Capitol grounds at the RNC and DNC, and he
did it just hours before the attack. I think the
response from prosecutors will be that's not what this pardon means.
First of all, he's not been convicted yet. But second
of all, the clear intent of the president when he
issued this pardon on day one, January twentieth, twenty twenty five,
was to pardon people who had been convicted up to
that date. But you know who can clarify all this
as Donald Trump. Look, if Donald Trump meant to pardon
someone in this position, he can come out and issue
a pardon for Brian Cole today if he wants, and
if he did not intend for his parton to apply
to future cases, he can come out and say that
as well. But I think it's a long, short argument,
But I think it's an interesting one, and I do
expect mister Cole's lawyer to raise it at some point.
Speaker 2: So you called it first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this guy Cole, the guy who planted the
two bombs that did not go off. He's confessed by
the way that yep, it's me, I did it. And
the reason he says that he did it was because
that he was very upset and concerned about the legitimacy
of the twenty twenty election. So will he fall under
the pardon that Donald Trump gave to everybody that was
involved in jan six. We'll have to wait and see. Meantime,
we did get minutes from the last Federal Reserve Board
meeting today, and in that they said that interest rates
could be on hold for some time. There was a
real split about dropping interest rates the last time around,
and so now they're talking about maybe leave interest rates
alone for quite some time. But before the next meeting
comes around. President Trump said today he will repeated what
he had said earlier. He's going to announce a new
FED chairman sometime in January. We don't know if it's
the first or the thirty first, but we'll have a
new FED chairman coming along. On all of that, well,
I should clarify the name of the new FED chairman
will be announced. J Powell's term goes until I forget
the date, but it's early May, so he'll still be
kind of there. We'll see how they worked that out
between the new FED chairman elect I guessed or announced
and the current chairman who will stay in power for
a while. Wall Street today market was slightly negative. Dow
Jones Industrials down ninety four to forty eight thousand and three,
sixty seven SMP down nine Nasdack down fifty five. Gold
after a bag drop yesterday, came back up a little today,
up up twenty dollars to forty four thousand and three
sixty four, and oil was down just a few pennies.
That fifty eight dollars for a barrel of oil. So
that's it for today. Thank you for coming by. We
will be back again tomorrow New Year's Eve. Oh yeah,
we'll be here. Hope to see UoS wall