The Joyce Kaufman Show 2/25/26 - State of the Union, Democrats disrespect for victims of crime, dangers of foreign people not assimilating, Fraud in blue states

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And she said, this isn't about agreeing with the president. I'm not even going to talk about him. This is about how elected officials conduct themselves in the House chamber. There was a time when members of Congress could oppose an administration forcefully while still respecting the office and the moment. That line used to matter. It didn't seem to matter last night. When victims of violent crimes were recognized, including a young girl when I was talking about, who survived something horrific, it didn't appear that a single Democrat stood. The chamber split along party lines during a moment that should have transcended politics. Refusing to stand wasn't a policy stance. It was a very unflattering statement. profanity displayed on clothing inside Congress. That was Rashida Tlaib wearing that F-pin. And broadcast nationwide, that was a choice that Rashida Tlaib made. The House floor isn't a protest rally or a campaign stage. It's a formal seat of government. And that space deserves seriousness. Watching it treated like a backdrop for defiance was embarrassingly disgusting, according to Melissa Steinberg Brodsky. I do have to agree with her there. Then there's the Kofia. wearing it on the House floor for anywhere within the U.S. government, that carries a very strong message. Symbols are not neutral. When a member of Congress chooses to wear a symbol widely associated with anti-Israel agitation, while declining to stand for American victims, it raises legitimate questions and... how it's not being investigated is mind-blowing. Laws, you know, exist because these are the legislators who pass them. Jews are frequently pushed and pushed to profess their undying loyalty to America. Oh, they're always being accused of having dual loyalty with Israel. But meanwhile, you could have one of these congresswomen wearing a kaffia on the floor of Congress. That signals to the people watching, whether it's the Americans watching at home or it's people from around the world watching. That says to me they have confused loyalties. When figures like Elon Musk Omar. who was born abroad and regularly denounces the country that she serves in Congress for, it is reasonable for people like me to ask the question, are they loyal to America? Because representation carries responsibility. Meanwhile, you have all the structural corruption that...

steals any hope we have of trust in our governing bodies. Members of Congress arrive in Washington, some of them with a little bit of money, not much, modest wealth, a couple of lawyers, a couple of businessmen, you know, when they leave with fortunes. Insider trading laws, which technically apply to them, have not been enforced. And they're weak at best, and there's all kinds of loopholes, and they take advantage of them. President Trump has said, let's ban congressional stock trading outright. And the proposal has made one thing clear. If public service truly belongs to the public, then members of Congress shouldn't be trading individual stocks at all. The resistance to that idea should tell you everything you need to know about these people, really. Like this Melissa Steinberg Brodsky, I just expect better. I actually believe in better. And what I saw last night didn't reflect the seriousness, didn't reflect respect or integrity. The kind of things that I used to feel about both parties. The Democrat Party and the Republican Party is not, I don't feel that way anymore. I really don't. And the Democrats looked so bad last night, so bad. You know, they had to throw Al Green out before the event even really started. He walked in there with a sign and Steve Scalise tore the sign out of his hand. I don't know what the sign said. I'm sure it was something stupid and inappropriate. Why? And then here's the best part, why I was so grateful that Donald Trump went there last night. Because we keep pretending that some of this outrageous, terrible stuff that's happening in our country is not a big deal. He referred to what's going on in Somali. As the Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption, and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception. Now, mind you, Elon Musk Omar went ballistic when he said that. But it's absolutely positively true. I've been saying that for decades, that when you import people into your country who don't like your country, who don't understand your country, and don't even want to emulate the good things about your country, what do you think is going to happen? There you have Democrats booing and heckling the President of the United States. And you had the media, what I heard, you know, basically scoffing at the president. But the president who estimated that $19 billion had been lost to fraud in Minnesota alone is if anything underplaying the scale of the problem would be appropriate.

The extent of fraud across blue states, that is states led by Democrats, is monstrous. And every week we have fresh revelations of swindling on a truly epic scale. It's so commonplace now that we don't even hardly pay attention to it. Trump's now withdrawn surge in Minnesota of ice caused so much drama on its own. that everybody has forgotten what initially provoked it. But when the country realized that the state was racked with fraud, clownish levels of fraud, significantly perpetrated by its small Somali immigrant minority. I'm sorry, Ilhan Omar, but that's who was doing this. First, it was feeding our future. which claimed to be feeding 120,000 children per day while actually serving a tiny fraction of that amount. And when confronted with suspicion from state bureaucrats, the perpetrators right away, public allegations of racism. And I don't think that it was racism since you were allowed to blow past safeguards and steal more than $250 million in that program feeding our future. And when confronted with suspicion from state bureaucrats, they didn't want to be called on the carpet. The fraud was so brazen that the perpetrator... Traders sued the regulators for being too slow in approving applications and managed to win more than $30,000 in sanctions from a state judge. The Attorney General of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, never cracked the case. But he did tell the fraudsters in a meeting that he was here to help. He was here to help them get more money one month before the FBI raids finally brought the fraud to an end. Of the 78 people indicted in the case, approximately 90% were of Somali origin. So you can roll your eyes and tell Donald Trump that he's the one who should be ashamed, Elon Musk Omar. But last night, he exposed you. What Trump got right in his State of the Union address is that... Suspicion should be acted upon and investigations should ensue. Not just in Minnesota. He brought up California. He brought up Illinois. Because the fraud is so brazen and it's just never ending. Feeding the futures was just the largest fraud among many. The state's Housing Stabilization Services Program.

which was created to help addicts and people who were physically or mentally disabled and is expected to cost about $2 million a year had to be stopped before it ballooned to more than $100 million in four years. So what was supposed to cost $2 million was so corrupted. that it had ballooned to more than $100 million in only four years. Hmm, what happened in those four years? Oh, that's right. Joe Biden was the president. Just saying. You know, the federal prosecutor by the name of Joe Thompson described the vast majority of the program, this housing stabilization services program. As fraudulent, and when he brought his first set of indictments for that fraud, six of his eight targets were Somali. And immediately after that came the Autism Center scandal. Minnesota children who were diagnosed with autism, qualify for all manner of government-funded treatment. and culturally appropriate treatment options proliferated. Somali children of Minnesota now have the highest incidence of autism in the world. What does that tell you? With one in 16, four-year-olds having a diagnosis, now that ought to get some attention from the medical community, no? Didn't even get attention from the journalists. They all bought into it. And just six days after the HSS indictment, Thompson indicted another Minnesota Somali for plundering $14 million through bogus autism treatment bills. Now, the guy Nick Shirley, he was a YouTube creator who really, he exposed all this stuff. You know, he was the guy who got the footage of the Quality Learning Center, which, by the way, couldn't spell learning. And... They were state subsidized daycares, which sat empty while collecting six or seven figure state payouts for children who never even got care. They didn't even show up. They didn't even pass through. A pile of easily obtained Minnesota Medicaid dollars was for medical transport companies. At the start of February, a Somali-American pleaded guilty to recruiting more than 300 others, some of whom received kickbacks, to receive bogus transport trips, billed to taxpayers, billed to you. And as his indictments dropped, Thompson made it plain that his criminal cases were far from even an exhaustive prosecution of the fraud that they had found.

Total fraud, he estimated, may exceed $9 billion. Yet the Minnesota state officials, oh, they're very eager to give him more to investigate. One Somali American who used to work in the state attorney general's office gave a very straightforward reason why. Democratic officials feared they would be alienating a core voting block if they did anything about it. It was like a scene from... The worst Quentin Tarantino movie. Minnesota liberals had imported a new class of voters, and now they had to ignore sweeping criminal behavior so they could keep them. Minnesota may be the symbol, but it is not. It's hardly an exception. Over the past few weeks, All kinds of local reporters or guys imitating Nicholas Shirley have made the case that their own state is much like Minnesota. And they compiled lots of evidence in Maine with its own small Somali population of only a few thousand. One building in Portland has been found housing five separate home health care agencies as well as a money transfer service linked back to Somalia Central Bank. Gateway Community Service, a Somali-owned company that received more than $28 million from Maine care between 2019 and 2024 had payments cut off at the end of last year after a whistleblower went public, saying he couldn't fathom the amount of fraud he had witnessed. The company, he said, faked visits to patients' homes, billed for never-performed services, and even cycled through a legion of temporary staffers in 2020 so that they could collect a windfall from the federal government's lockdown-related paycheck protection program. Oh, now, of course, they deny those allegations. But what stands out is a new, aggressive willingness to defend or deny or ignore fraud for reasons of political economy. In New York, the signature program is CD-PAP, the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program. that CD-PAP has the state pony up to pay salaries to New Yorkers who are acting as home health aides for family members. So in theory, if you're paying a family member, a small salary to care for a sick family member, it's actually more efficient than subsidizing costly nursing home beds, right? In practice,

The program encourages these close-knit communities, especially among immigrants, to treat it as a backdoor universal basic income, getting paychecks to take care of family members or neighbors who require little or no medical support, who aren't even in the country. Are you hearing me? Because that is what Donald Trump blew the whistle on last night. And that is why when Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib scream back at him, you ought to ask yourself, why are they screaming? They got caught. Between 2019 and 2023 alone, spending on the New York program ballooned from $2.5 billion to $9 billion. New York currently has 171 home health aides for every 1,000 senior citizens. That's more than double the national average. That's 24% ahead of California, which is in second place. And nine times the number in the last place state we hear in Florida. But we don't tolerate that. Almost any medical dollars are ripe for plundering in the Empire State. Social adult daycare centers, which were intended to offer care for seniors who are chronically ill. Instead, they recruit elderly who are healthy and relatively independent with free food, entertainment, so that they can get access to hundreds of millions in state dollars. The New York Post found no, not even a glimmer of medical care for the chronically ill being evidenced, but ample evidence of $12 lunches from nearby eateries being billed at $85 apiece. $12 lunch, $85. And naturally, the scheme is particularly popular with another immigrant subgroup. And in this case, it's New York's Chinese community. Is it any wonder that New York with a smaller and younger population than its rival Florida nevertheless spends three times as much on Medicaid? Over and over, the same patterns recur. Dozens of near identical businesses filling the same niche in a single community. And he said it last night. And I've been saying it for 30 years. They don't have the same attitude about dealing with their government that we do in many of these countries. Their government has been robbing and plundering forever. So when they can get over on their government, they give you a thumbs up. But now you're here. And now some of you are serving in Congress. Why are you giving a thumbs up to this?

Really disgusting, despicable behavior. Now you've got actual autistic kids in Minnesota who can't get any services because they pull the funding on everything, even the ones that were legit. Look, no state in the union is without fraud. But what stands out in Minnesota, in New York, in California is this new aggressive willingness to defend. and actually ignore these epidemic levels of fraud for politics. That's why. The best symbol of blue state decay isn't Minnesota or New York, but California. Yeah, witness the backlash when in January the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the administrator, Mehmet Oz, went to L.A. to spotlight a fraud hotspot for his agency, a four-block area of the San Fernando Valley with 42 registered hospices. Oz alleged that hospice and in-home health services in California were riddled with phony services, but then made an explosive additional claim. That fraud is particularly rampant among Russian and Armenian immigrant mafias. Whoa! Instead of thanking Dr. Oz, the governor, Gavin Newsom. Instead of, you know, calling him a hero for bringing this up, he filed a civil rights complaint against Oz and the agency. And of course, Adam Schiff, the senator, demanded an investigation of Oz for being a racist. You know, come on. I loved it last night. I don't care if the Democrats were insulted. I don't care if people were offended. He did it. He did exactly what a talk show host like me has been praying I could do for 35 years, 36 years. And that was to say, are you not going to stand for the American people? Are you not going to stand for a five-year-old? Are you not going to stand for a young military man who went out of his way to rescue people? And he did it. They didn't stand. And they look terrible. All right. Let me take a quick break. Stay right where you are. I'll be right back. So what can I tell you? You know, fraud is a serious matter. And the idea that we have elected members serving in Congress who really don't want anybody to pay attention to the fraud and will make accusations like it's racist. You know, it's like if you are scared.

Because you see like a 16 year old, a group of 16 year olds, right? And you're walking down a dark street. And this group of 16 year olds, they're being loud and aggressive. They have all the, you know, the facial tattoos, all that stuff that makes you think this could be an unfortunate incident. And so you literally cross the street. Are you, did you cross the street because you don't like young people or you don't like, because they can be any color. So it's not, it can't say racist, but am I against young people or am I against people who have purple hair? I don't think so. But I can calculate in my head. which groups pose a greater threat to me. Not every time, but maybe one time. That's all it needs to be, right? It's one time. So I just, I really don't get it. When I looked last night at, I'll give you a perfect example. I thought that the president was on like his best behavior because he was pretty mild when he made his comments about the Supreme Court. They didn't even look particularly upset. He said what he said. It was an unfortunate decision that came down. And then he went on to explain, oh, don't worry, I'm still going to get it done. And I'm thinking, okay, I've been reading up on it. And there are other avenues that he could take. But he didn't, you know, actually, Joe Biden was harsher on the Supreme Court during his one state of the union. I don't even know it was the state of the union, but whatever, when he had a joint address, he was rougher on them than President Trump was last night. I was really surprised about that. But they sat there stoic. You know, I looked at these crazy. In all those empty seats, like, what did you tell, what do you tell your constituents when your constituents say, where were you on the night of the State of the Union? During the final portion, when they were giving the Congressional Medal of Honor to the 100-year-old World War II veteran, Royce, a fighter pilot, right? They're given him that, and I'm watching the floor, and I see Brian Mast, and he's on the floor, and he's just ecstatic. You know, for him, when people in the military are recognized, it's, you know, it's heavenly. He champions the cause, right? And so I'm watching him cheering and cheering, and I texted him, and I said, wait a minute. Wasn't I supposed to be at the state of the union address? Because he and I had a deal about me getting to the first state of the union address if and when Donald Trump got reelected. Now, I meant in 2020, but I'll hold for 2024. So anyway, I texted him just kidding, just a joking email. And he said, you will absolutely be there next year. And I know he means that. And it's the only thing I've not been to.

I've been to the Supreme Court deliberations. I've been, you know, when bills were being argued on the floor, I've had a lot of marvelous experiences. American citizens should know how their government works, okay? I've done those things, but I've never been to a State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. So next year I'm going. That's all. You know, the idea that people select guests. It should be somewhat relevant. And he'll tell you, I'm relevant because when he decided to run from Congress for Congress, I was the one who said, absolutely positively, I'll do whatever I can to help you. You're the right kind of guy. And at that point, I was no longer supporting candidates. And many of you know, I had just backed away from supporting candidates. But Brian was unique. It is still unique. And for him to answer me last night. You know, he never forgets my birthday. You know, he's a good, decent congressman. And there's not a whole lot of them. And I was just grateful they didn't put him in the cabinet because we need some decent congressmen. How about that? Can't put everybody in the cabinet, Mr. President. So I was, you know, I'm looking at the Munich. Last night, I was looking at some videotape of the various speeches that went on because Marco Rubio has become very impressive and you know it kills me to say that, but credit where credit is due. He was very almost regal looking last night. The president. said he was going to go down in history, maybe the best Secretary of State ever, you know, and that might be a little hyperbolic, but I'll tell you, that's a distinct possibility. I looked at him, and I turned to my husband, I said, that's a future president. He's going to be the president one day. I'm standing by that. I could care less about, you know, whether JD Vance becomes president. Yeah, I'm not that impressed, but Marco Rubio has definitely impressed me. Anyway, so I'm looking at some of these videos, and what was the purpose of all these people who went to Munich? I'm really confused, you know, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gavin Newsom, all these people. It's not, they weren't on a campaign stop. It wasn't like a podcast studio. It wasn't like they were sitting on domestic policy panels. It wasn't even a protest stage, you know. It's a room where deterrence and alliance credibility and force posture and geopolitical hierarchy are being discussed as operational readiness. It's kind of an important spot. And this year, when Marco Rubio walked into Munich as Secretary of State and spoke in the language of state craft, he showed power. I watched all of his speeches. He had two that I saw. He had power. He talked about sovereignty. He talked about industrial capacity. He talked about alliance recalibration. He talked about enforcement. And he talked about hierarchy.

He argued that institutions must serve capability. He framed civilization, the survival of civilization, as the organizing principle of security. And he reassured Europe that, you know, but on different terms than we always used to talk to them, and agree or disagree, he spoke in the grammar of power. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also appeared in Munich. Oh my goodness. Her focus, as it has been throughout her career, centered on democratic norms and climate urgency and domestic legitimacy and social justice. And those are real issues. But Munich isn't about that. Munich tests something different. It tests whether a political figure can operate inside the architecture of international order, not to simply critique it. The presidency, which people keep saying she's going for it, requires three forms of fluency, domestic legitimacy, economic stewardship, and foreign policy command. A candidate can rise on the first, but they cannot govern without the third. So Marco Rubio demonstrated easily with comfort all of those qualities within the machine. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's rhetoric, by contrast, I watched her too, was, you know, she does that moral framing. Nothing I like better than being morally lectured by a bartender. Just saying, you know, just calling it what I see. Munich exposes the difference between critique and command, between moral urgency and operational authority, between advocacy and executive readiness. Marco Rubio spoke as someone who's ready. And I saw him last night. He looks ready. He really does. Very, very much so. Anyway, don't forget coming up after me is Guy Benson, followed by Will Kane, and then it's Joe Pags, Lars Larson, the overnight guys, until 6 a.m. when Jennifer Ross and Stephen Deiner come back with the South Florida Morning Show. At 9 o'clock, it's Brian Kilmeade. At noon, it's Eric Erickson. And at 3 o'clock, I get to come back. But I still have a segment left in today's program. So stay right where you are. That was kind of cool with me. men's hockey team came out. I'd never seen a presentation quite like that. They all came out from the back and they were like standing down the aisle. They looked like they had more teeth than the other day. I guess they put like little plates in them or something, but, you know, hockey players lose teeth. That's a pretty common thing. I don't really know that much about hockey. I do know that we always have outstanding women's hockey teams, and I believe we won gold there as well. But Donald Trump is so excited whenever Americans win anything. He is just like so pro-America.

It's sort of exciting to watch him, just cheering on the country. Why would anyone want to lead a country that they didn't think was marvelous? A man like him, he doesn't need this job. You know, when people tell me, oh, well, but he likes the power. He had plenty of power. And he already had the presidency. I believe he loves this country in a way that very few can or have. And that's one of the things that I was drawn to right away, this feverish love for the country. And my father had that. And to some extent, I have it, but not like Donald Trump. I wouldn't walk away from fame and fortune. Well, maybe fame, but I wouldn't walk away from fortune the way he did. The guy don't even take a paycheck. Come on. You know, I don't, I love the country, but why would you work so hard for a country that didn't even appreciate you? He's treated like garbage. But that's not why he does it. He doesn't do it to get recognition. He doesn't do it to receive a hand for a job well done. He just gets impeached and indicted. That's what he gets for all his efforts. So, you know, I don't know. I found that moving when the... The hockey team came in. I get moved by all those guests in the well, the people who do the really tough stuff, saving lives, first responders, and the men and women who serve in the military. How do you not get excited about that sacrifice that they make? How do you not appreciate them? You know, I cannot imagine. not standing for my country. It just is, why? Why would you feel so? outside of it. I guess that's the expression I'm seeking, is why would you not feel a part of this country? And when people say, oh, well, you know, not everybody has been treated fairly in this country. No, but one thing about this country is whenever we find out that there's an unfair treatment of any group, we try to remedy it. You know, we don't want people to be... put on special lists. We don't want to take away their rights. That's not who we are as a nation. We are compassionate. We are the most charitable nation on earth. You don't have to, you really don't have to ask. Americans just give.

And that's why I enjoy watching someone who is excited about this country, excited about leading this country, and wants what's best for all of us. He's not doing this for the Trump family. He's doing it for all of us. I believe that with every fiber of my being. Now, unfortunately, he's serving at a time where half of this country. They not only don't like this country, they hate this country. They say things that I would never say about my worst enemy, only they're saying it about this country, this country that gave them the opportunity. Does Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, do any of those, those two women, do either one of them? not understand what would happen to them if they were living in, you pick the place in the Middle East. You name it. Gaza. Do you think either one of them wants to live in Gaza? Of course not. But they got nothing nice to say about this country that has afforded them education, medical care. A pretty nice job serving in the United States Congress. So, listen, I sit in amazement, I really do, but I loved the speech last night. I was too charged up afterwards to even go to sleep. I did not watch Abigail Spanberger or the Spanish language one. I didn't. I felt so good coming off of the State of the Union address. I didn't want to mess it up. I said, let me just enjoy this for a little while. You know, there'll be plenty of time. I'm sure they'll be after him. Like, what is it, Uglyana Ape is, as they say in the Gunsmoke series, that's what Festus always says. I'll get on you like Ugly on an Ape. That's how I felt I didn't want to ruin it. And I didn't. I enjoyed it. Went to sleep, feeling positive. And I heard that they reinstated the 56 Coast Guard members who refused the COVID vaccine. I was happy to hear that. Took long enough, right? Anyway, I thank you for your time this time until next time. And my plan is to be back here tomorrow at 3 o'clock if it be his will. And he delays his coming. What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are with tiny matters compared to what lies within us. So wherever you are, just be yourself. Everybody else is taken. And then may God bless you. May God bless Israel. And may God bless the USA. See you tomorrow. This has been the Joyce Kaufman podcast. Available everywhere you get your podcasts.