Monday 4/13/26

Hail, hail, the gang's all here. Here we are. And we're booming. And we are booming on the range now. We don't you forget it. All right. The whole deal. And booming throughout the eighth congressional district this morning. Yes. We have a special guest. We do. The man speaking for the district. Tigersman Pete Stobbers with us. Pete, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. How are you guys? Well, we're hanging in there. We're present and accounted for. How are you doing? Kind of waiting for spring. There you are out in Washington, D.C. with cherry blossoms, the blooming and the whole works. Yeah, the cherry blossom season is really winding down now, but I do have a beep with you because I was listening to you earlier, Dave. And, Jackie, you had said that you got to get your first morning coffee at 8 a.m. What is wrong? No, that's just right, because there was no coffee in the building. So we were all just walking like zombies for the first couple hours. I get here at usually 3 o'clock or so. And the first thing I do is make a pot of coffee, but when I checked the cupboard, there was no coffee to make. See, you should have texted me then, Dave. I could have brought it in. What happened here, Pete, was Sarah. who's our gatekeeper was gatekeeping down in Florida. Oh, she was on vacation. Oh, that's exciting. Somebody forgot. I brought my own coffee with, so I made mine at 7 o'clock. Bring any for the rest of the class, I see. Yeah, so there you go. We're okay now, Pete. We have coffee. I'm going to give you a pass. We're going to be with you this morning. Thank you for joining us. We haven't fallen asleep, and now we're wide awake, so we're ready to go. Yep, yep, they're ready and we're a lot rocking here. Well, Pete, it's good to hear from you. Yeah, it's good. Chat, I haven't seen you for a while, but I run into you every once in a while when you're back in the district. A lot of things going on. We've got lists and lists and lists to talk about. But I guess I'll hit the first thing that's going on. The vice president was over in Pakistan, and now they've come back on the Iranian deal, and there's no Iranian deal. Any insight here? So, you know, the inset I have is just a little bit more than you've already talked about. But remember, the three priorities were, the goals were, and this came from not only the president, but Secretary of War and Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Kane. It was to destroy their Navy, remove their ability to shoot missiles at the U.S. bases and our allies. and then to make sure that the uranium enrichment never, ever happens. And they've met those goals right now. So I think the discussions are to allow the Straits of Hormuz where about 20% of the world's oil goes through to make sure that's a safe passage for countries to get their oil and what have you. Right now, the president is demanding not only the United States but NATO come together and secure that straight so the Iranians can't kill or damage ships that come through there and, you know, looking for. And again, I will tell you that this is why it's so important that the President Trump was pushing for energy independence. We can't rely on adversarial nations, and we don't want our...

allies, you know, relying on adversarial nations. We're producing more and more oil each day, whether it's in Alaska or the Permian Basin and New Mexico or Texas and Arizona. I think it's very, very important that we recognize strategically energy independence as national security. And we're seeing that play out right now, you know, across the world. Well, I'll tell you, we sure are. You see the tightening with the straits there with... Certainly most of the oil that's coming out of Iran and that area is going to Asia. And, you know, that in the past, I know there had been talk at one point of doing a canal over to the Red Sea. I mean, that would be unbelievably expensive. But I don't know if anybody, I know they've got, the Saudis have got a couple pipelines that go across their turf from. from the Persian Gulf there over to over to the Red Sea. Now, for 40-some years, for 47 years, Iran has been a thorn in everybody's side in that region. And we've had some crises in the past. And now, of course, we're seeing... what's occurring today. And finally somebody, the U.S. and some of the Arab allies, not necessarily the NATO allies. That's kind of interesting. We kind of roll the ball with Ukraine, and all of a sudden NATO is kind of sliding on the sidelines, to say the least. I see there's a couple of Navy destroyers that have entered the straits there to monitor and to make sure there aren't any mines. President wants to blockade the straits, too. He mentioned that yesterday. I'm not sure what that would do. Yeah, so let's talk about that. When we talk about Iran and their terrorist regime, you're right. They've been, you know, terrorizing the world for 47 years. You remember the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 200 and some service members were killed. The terrorism hasn't stopped. And the fact is that every president, since Jimmy Carter has says we have to bring Iran under control, they can't terrorize the world. And President Trump was the only one that said, enough is enough, and, you know, made the decision.

to stop their terrorist regime. And they've done a good job. I've been in two briefings now where General Kane has talked about the professionalism, the integrity, the tactics that were used. to, you know, meet their end goal. And I tell you what, I was sitting there with a lump in my throat thinking these men and women have been training for years. The precision, some of those strikes had to be within three feet of the target from hundreds of miles away. So I think that I'm very, very proud of our military and I'm very proud of the leadership. And certainly President Trump, when he makes a decision and puts a red line in the sand, that red line means a red line to him. There will be no more appeasement to the Iranian regime. And I think that in these past negotiations with Vice President JD Vance and a couple others, you're seeing that. You know, Iran still wants to enrich. They're not going to enrich. for uranium. We know that the worst thing that could happen to our service members or our allies, and even ourselves, is for Iran to get a nuclear missile or a dirty bomb, which would be devastating. It's not going to happen, and President Trump has set the tone. And it's interesting, Neil, you talk about some of the allies that were not helping us. When President Trump says you weren't there for us, why would we need you when we've asked? Some of them are coming back on board and understanding, okay, now we're going to help because NATO is important if we stick together. But if you have some countries making decisions not to support the United States, then, you know, why are they in it or why are we spending an exorbitant amount of money in their respective countries to help keep them safe? And I think the president is on the verge of making those very, very... important decisions on what's going to happen with NATO and where we're going to place our troops from here on out. Well, Pete, what's interesting about NATO in the last year, we've had a couple of new members that had stayed away, Finland and Sweden, Sweden maintaining neutrality over the years. Obviously, those nations see the benefit of a strong alliance for defense. And so what you say is good that the president certainly put the fire to their feet, so to speak, and now NATO members are starting to say, hey, we are going to help out here. I notice the French and some others are coming on board. Pete, we have to take a quick little walkabout here. We'll be right back if you can hang on. Yes, I can. Back in just a minute, 824 from KDAO. All right, we are back. It is the morning show here on KDAL, about 827. And you guys are all coffeeed up. Our congressmen's coffered up, I believe. I hope so, yeah. All adequately caffeinated. Of course, he's an hour ahead of us, Pete Stobber. Good to have you back on board with us. Good morning. It's great to be back with you. I'm so glad you're all coffeeed up. Yes, yes. You can see them moving here.

So, Pete, I've got to ask you, the White House ballroom caper. Oh, yeah. The steel issue. What the heck is going on with that? Yeah, you know, that came up last week. Obviously, I would have preferred to have U.S. Steel or cliffs. Cleveland Cliffs donate the steel, which we know would have been mined right here in northern Minnesota. But when we talk about, you know, the steel industry in general, remember that Trump's first term, he put the 232 steel tariffs in place. And he did that because of the steel dumping by nations such as China, cheap Chinese steel coming onto our shores from California and Houston. And he put the tariffs on, which saved the steel industry on the Iron Range. We know that the Chinese Communist Party, one of their main goals is to shut down our steel-making capacity, and one of the things they can do is dump cheap steel. We want our minds up and running. We want in projects throughout this country. uh... american-made steel and that's exactly what i've uh... been pushing for and will continue to push for you know we have steel workers uh... on the iron range their their unemployment insurance is going to run out i believe at the end of this month right that's just unconscious but we have to make sure and i have in my uh... almost eight years in congress pushed the importance of the iron range and why it matters. And now you're having people even in the Senate talking about the iron range. And again, we have another opportunity in critical minerals. We have the biggest untapped copper, nickel find in the world, in the Duluth complex. It's known as the Duluth complex in our superior national forest. And if you look at the definition, within the Superior National Forest. It's a working industrial forest. We're both timber harvesting and mining our desired activities. And I think it's important that we recognize we have that opportunity. We need these miners to get back to work and we can diversify the range when we talk about mining. We need these minerals. We can't rely on China. And it just so happens that this week in the U.S. Senate... my congressional review act, which is the reversal of Joe Biden's mineral ban in the Superior National Forest of 225,504 acres, that is going to be on the Senate floor for reversal of the Biden mineral ban, which is going to allow companies to compete, and they have to still go through the rigorous... environmental process both at the federal and state level before they can mine. And so I'm looking forward to this passing the Senate. I've been told that our two U.S. Senators, Amy Klobuchar and Smith, are going to vote against it. And as you know, Senator Amy Klobuchar and touts her mining heritage. Your grandfather was mined and the Iron Range near Ely.

And I ask, well, why can't you give other people the opportunity to have that mining heritage? We do it right. We've been doing it right for 146 years in northern Minnesota. We've strategically won world wars with our steel. We're going to continue to do that. We're going to build with our steel. And we're going to continue to mine those critical minerals that we use in our everyday life. You know, China dominates the critical mineral market. And when we open up these mines, not only in northern Minnesota, but across this nation, we have the ability, again, to be critical mineral dominant. So we're not relying on adversarial nations for these minerals that we need. And by the way, there's a helium find up there as well. I was going to ask you about that. Yep. Yeah, it's pulsar helium, and there are 3% helium is economically viable to go after across the world. This is up to 11 in summary is 13%. I know. The concentrate of helium. And we need that for our medical instrument technology, our weapons that, our defense weapons that we see that are on our F-35s. We need helium. So this... Congressional Review Act also allows the helium to be extracted as well, because helium is a critical minerals, and the U.S. Forest Service says that expand. So not only can we expand with the development of helium, but also the critical minerals, and we can have a good, clean environment and mine. We are so richly blessed in northeastern Minnesota with the mines that... that we need to continue to push to have that opportunity to strategically secure our national security via the minerals that we are, again, richly blessed to have right underneath our feet, and we get those miners back working on the iron range. Well, I hope. It's been a long haul with the copper-nickel issue from Paulyumet to today, so hopefully the Senate bill will move forward. Certainly. opening up mining. And what's amazing on this, Congressman, is Minnesota has some of the strictest rules and regulation on the environment. And many of these projects had moved forward with all the rules and regulations implemented. And politically, they were stopped because of the various fringe groups that don't believe that any mining is beneficial. Although what amazes me is they show up in their SUVs and electric vehicles that benefit from all this. Right, and their cell phones and everything they use. You know, they want to protest it, but they want it mine, but they want to use it. Yeah. That's right. I mean, we have the ability to do it here, and we're going to do it right. We demand it's done right. You talk about the standards. We demand they meet or exceed all federal and state standards. That's who we are in Minnesota.

So I've got to ask you, you've got some colleagues in the house there that are in trouble right now. One from Minnesota. I don't know how bad of trouble she's in with not reporting what appears to be insider stock trades, millions of dollars worth, one of your colleagues on the other side of the aisle. And I know for years there's been the attempt to get Congress to... to not be able to act on inside information and report things properly. And obviously she has, we talked about this a little bit last week. And, of course, in the past they talked about former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and her husband and the stock trades that they did. And it all seems to just get, the can gets kicked down the road. Well, it's unfortunate. My colleague, Kelly Morrison, from down south, allegedly there was some, you know, over a million dollars of trades that wasn't reported. And the fact of the matter is we have rules and regulations that we have to follow. The public does not trust. uh... the uh... the uh... the uh... certain members of congress because they've shown they can't be trusted look at Nancy Pelosi Look at Ilhan Omar. Ilhan Omar came in Congress the same year I did. Her filings, FEC filings, she's worth $30 million, her and her husband. How does that happen? You tell me how that happens in just seven years. And so I do know that she is being investigated by the DOJ, and that's what we need. We need people to be held accountable, just like the fraud. The fraud in Minnesota, the billions of dollars of fraud in Minnesota, we need people held accountable. So it never happens again. Hardworking Minnesotans are being ripped off by these fraudsters. And they're just, I mean, look at some of the sentencing they're getting. They've stole millions of dollars, millions of dollars. And they get the six months in jail and a $150,000 fine. This is what blows my mind. That's the whole thing. Hey, we've got to go for it quick. Can you hang out for a couple more minutes? Yeah. Okay. We'll be right back. That is 837, the morning show here on KDAL. Morning show continuing here on KDAL. It is cloudy, 43 over the hill, 43 downtown, 46 at the Bogin Superior, and it's 41 in Hibbing this morning. And we are back with Congressman Pete Stowe. And he said my favorite F word. He said the fraud. Let's get on this. Pete, I'll tell you. You know, on what's interesting, you have Inspector Generals all over the place on the federal government side. And Minnesota, for some odd reason,

didn't have much of an apparatus set up to ferret out independently fraud. And what's happened, now we've been on this for a couple of years since this all came out when we're on the other radio station and this one in Minnesota. And it amazes me because I know having worked. on the national level a few times, where the inspector generals are. And every step of the way, on the federal side, they're there. And Minnesota basically not having that apparatus set up in the state legislature having to set up special anti-fraud deals. And now, of a sudden, the governor is claiming that it was like it's his idea. But yeah, it's just bizarre. Well, it's, you know, when I'm in Washington, D.C., and I'm meeting people for the first time when I tell them, I'm from Minnesota, they just say, oh, my gosh, your state, you've got to clean up that state. Right. And it's rather embarrassing. That's what's happening in our great state. And really, if you look at it, under this administration for several years, there's been fraud. Look at the autism fraud, starting in 2017. There was autism fraud. There was a million dollars of federal and state money putting to help children and families with autism. Seven years later, seven years later, it's almost $400 million. And that's not a red flag for this administration. I either, in my opinion, either Walves is incompetent or he's complicit in this. You cannot allow this to happen without knowing about it. And look at Ellison, for example, on that phone call. They're investigating him right now on the phone call for those. folks to, you know, stop their investigation so he could get a kickback in his campaign. I mean, you look at feeding our future, the autism, the Medicaid fraud, the daycare fraud. Dr. Oz thinks that there's going to be, you know, upwards of $9 to $18 billion, $9 to $18 billion. of Medicaid fraud in the state of Minnesota. Well, that's the tip of the iceberg. Now you're looking at California and other states. So I want to put it in a frame of reference here. The Blotnick Bridge, it's $1.3 billion to build the rebuild. That's like fraud 19 times over than what it cost to build the Blotnick Bridge. Think about that. And hardworking Minnesotans have had it. And I've said enough. We're going to get down to the bottom of this.

We are going to make sure that we hold those accountable. Yet we have state judges allowing the mastermind of feeding our future to keep his passport, and now he's bailed the country. Yeah, isn't that? How ridiculous can it be? The other thing that we have found out that it used to be, you couldn't bring more than, I believe, $10,000 in cash if you leave the country and people bringing suitcases of money and headed to Somalia and Ethiopia and elsewhere. Well, not exactly. We know there were suitcases, literally suitcases, because I had a friend who was a former police officer at MSP. He called me, he says, Pete, I can't believe this is going on. They just bring it back and don't think. that some of that money has not gone to terrorist organizations. Oh, of course. Well, they really need to track it, and I know there's been 60 people just feeding our future a charge, and more than a dozen of them have been convicted, and assets have been... seized. What's amazing on this whole deal, and of course this is spreading nationally as the Trump administration and you folks in Congress start digging into this with the various federal programs. But the people that are the whistleblowers who were intimidated by the higher ups in state government, it's just amazing. Minimized in the whole nine yards, and of course the whistleblowers are coming forward, and we're finding out more and more about this. You know, the whistleblowers, that's why we put the Whistleblower Protection Act through Congress. Listen, these, many of them were social workers that were seeing this in the Wall's administration. And they said, absolutely not. This is fraud. Initially, it was about 300 that came forward and said, this is not right. Now, the testimony in Washington, D.C. by those legislators out of Minnesota now believe there's over 1,000 whistleblowers in the state of Minnesota coming forward and saying, look at this. This is wrong. And then we have seniors that have to fight the government because their Medicaid isn't paid for or they're fighting for health care. When we have these fraudsters literally bilking Minnesotans on billions of dollars. Well, it's something else. Oh, Dave's getting anxious over here to go for another break. Sorry, we've got to pay the bills. Are you able to hang with us for a few more minutes? I can hang with you for one more break, yeah. Okay, all right. Okay, we'll be right.

All right, the morning show continuing here on a Monday, the 13th of April, a couple days away from Tax Day. Neil, I got to rate checks this week. What's Wall Street doing this morning, do you think? Down. Yeah, it is down. Wall Street's down, still nervous about oil prices. Oil prices surging again, and stock market down, about $400 for the dollars. They said it was going to be down this morning when I checked before the opening. So, Congressman, is Congress going to expel Eric Swalwell? One of your colleagues who's running for governor who's embroiled in a sexual scandal. Another scandal. Oh, boy. that, you know, there are what we call privilege resolutions, and at least one Republican and a couple of Democrats are going to get together and put forth what they call a privilege resolution, which means we have 48 hours to, you know, vote on it if they demand it comes to the floor. So we'll see. Obviously, Eric Swalwell is a sexual predator, the women who have testified against him, including his staffers, and that just came out. Oh, I heard that, yeah. Mm-hmm. He removed himself as a gubernatorial candidate in California. And my belief is if you can't be a gubernatorial candidate, you should probably not be in Congress. I do believe that the standards must be raised. We're representatives of the people and to have a sexual predator and an individual that... you know, treats women that way and abuses him. He ought not to be anywhere near the House of Representatives. It's interesting what's tracked him. He had this deal when he was on the city council in his district where he was frolicking with a young Chinese woman that turned out to be a spy for the Chinese Communist Party. That came out, and that never heard him. I mean, he kept on getting elected, and now all this junk. Neil, here's what, here's the thing. He was, he had relations with a Chinese spy. Her name was Fang Fang. And when he got to Congress, Nancy Pelosi and the leadership, Kevin McCarthy on the Republican side met. And Kevin told Nancy this is the relationship they had with a Chinese spy. And Nancy Pelosi still. put him on the Intelligence Committee. Yeah, I remember that. Wow. When you are put on the Intelligence Committee, that's a select committee, and only those that are requested by leadership are on that committee. So they put Nancy Pelosi put Eric Swalwell on the Intelligence Committee knowing he had relations with a Chinese spy. Unbelievable. I've got one final question for you, and this is,

The rhetoric that we have seen with... Leaders in Congress, Chuck Schumer, now the president, using F-bombs now in their language, other members of Congress using the F-bomb. Mayor Fry. And Mayor Frye out of Minneapolis using the F-bomb. And on and on, what's happening here to the standards? The standards nationally of our elected people. Pete, no F-bombs in your answer, please. Yeah, really. No, no, no, no. I do think, really, in all sincerity, I do think the decorum, we need to raise it. And all of us have to take the responsibility to do that. I think using foul language like that is just, it's not right. I don't think it's right, not only in the halls of Congress, but in general conversations. But the fact of the matter is. It appears that some members of Congress used that language. You know, for whatever reason, I don't use it myself. I think it's wrong. But, you know, we in Congress, we are, we must be held to a higher standard. We're representing the people. And that's why these allegations on folks like Eric Swalwell, we have to take them seriously. And the ethics committee will look at all of these. and give us our recommendation. There's going to be an ethics recommendation. I think coming out this week on the Democrat gal who stole $5 million of FEMA money and got caught. When she does that, you're looking at, you know, felony charges. Isn't she the one from Florida? Yes, $5 million from FEMA to go to people in need. And it was just found out. So our ethics, the chair is Michael Gast out of Missouri. They're going to come up with a recommendation to the House of Representatives sometime this week, we believe. And my guess is this going to be expulsion. So when that vote comes up, We'll vote. She'll be most likely expelled and have to leave Congress. What about what's happening with your fellow Republican down in Texas? Tony, what's his last name that?

Yeah, Tony Gonzalez. Yeah, Tony Gonzalez. You know, he was involved in an incident. I know that the ethics committee is also looking at that. And the fact of the matter is we have professional staffers that work with us that help us get things done. And people make just outrageously bad decisions involving relationships. And Tony is alleged to have done that. So that's going to come out in the ethics decision very, very soon. All right. Well, Pete, thanks. It's good to have you on board here. We're going to have to move along and let you go off and do bidding for your constituents and for America. Thank you so much. Thanks for being with us. And thank you very much. Go Twins and go Minnesota water. All right. Thank you. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. All right, we're at 858. We're going to wrap things up here already, I guess. Yes, we do. Here we go. That was awesome. Jackie's running to get another big cup of coffee. No, I'm done. This is going to be it. I think this is, I can't stand myself. Now that Sarah's back, there'll be plenty of time. I guess so. We won't have the same issue tomorrow. All right. We'll see you all Wednesday. All right. What do you got Wednesday? The two of you. Oh, okay. Perfect. That's all you need. Maybe you'll have a surprise. All right. Stick around. We've got news coming up next from CBS. And Jackie and I will be back for another hour of the morning show here on KVA.