December 8, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode of A Numbers Game, Ryan and Manhattan Institute journalist Ryan Thorpe uncover a massive Minnesota welfare fraud scheme involving Somali immigrants, with more than $1 billion in alleged fraudulent claims and reports that some funds may have reached Al-Shabaab. The conversation breaks down government oversight failures, media bias, and the economic and social consequences of unchecked immigration policies. Thorpe also explores border security, the rise of European populism, and Florida’s leadership on data center regulation and electricity pricing, calling for honest, data-driven reforms to protect taxpayers and restore trust in public assistance programs. It's a Numbers Game with Ryan Girdusky is part of the Clay & Buck Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to a Numbers game with Ryan Gerduski. Thank
you guys for being here. It is December eighth, twenty
twenty five, just seventeen days till Christmas. I hope you
are all having a very healthy and happy holiday season
and getting prepared for whatever holiday you're celebrating. I have
done zero Christmas shopping whatsoever so far, so I'll be
in a full blown panic by next week. Anyway, before
(00:23):
I get into the topic of the day, I want
to talk to the young men who are listening, or
to parents who have young sons or nephews and they're
looking for a job and a place. It is a
very rough time in America to sit there and find
a job, especially for a young person. I talk to
young people all the time. I came across a story
(00:46):
over my feet and I was flabbergasted bite and I
wanted to sit there and share it with you guys.
The US is facing a shortage of a merchant marines.
Now what is a merchant marine. There're civilians who operate
commercial ships, transporting cargo and passengers globally, handling navigation, maintenance,
and providing services crucial for trade and military support. The
(01:06):
government is desperate to find new merchant marines. According to
the New York Times, only eight hundred and ten people
graduated coastal Guard qualifications to work on vessels last year.
You may say, Ryan, I never thought about this, Why
would I want this job? Salaries are well into the
six figures for the Military Sealift Command, which was taken
out of regular service last year because the lack of
(01:28):
civilians to work on these boats. The salary was two
hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year for first officers,
along with a seventy one thousand dollars signing bonus and
six months of paid leave offshore. Now, it is tough
work when you're on the boat. It's a lot of
long hours, you know, tough days, but six months, you know,
(01:50):
paid leave, two hundred.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I think for a lot of young men who are
sitting there or maybe listening to the show where your
mom or dad and you're like, what could my kid do?
I just think that this might be a good way
just to give it a shot. Look at this, especially
if you're young and you know you want something to
start in the economy where you can provide for a
family buy a house. One day, I thought I would
share because I know a lot of people out there
are really confused and are looking for something. And pay
(02:15):
two hundred grand a year not a not a bad job.
So anyway, let's get to politics now. So a story
broke back on November nineteenth by City Journal, the writers
Christopher Rufo and Ryan Wroter store of Somalians living in Minnesota.
Dozens of Somalians created a billion dollar plus welfare fraud scheme,
one of the largest in the nation's history, and millions
of these dollars ended up in the hands of the
(02:37):
terrorist group Al Shabab back in Somalia. Now, if you
guys remember your history, Minnesota's and Somalia had one of
the largest recruiting groups in the entire country. We're trying
to join ices back in twenty eleven to twenty sixteen.
The story got moderate play when it's broken by the
City Journal in Manhattan Institute, but by the New York
Times got a hold of the story, it received widespread attention.
(02:59):
According to the Time quote, over the last five years,
law enforcement officials say fraud took root in pockets of
Minnesota Somalian Daysporia as scores of individuals made fortunes by
setting up companies that build state agencies for millions of
dollars worth of social services that were never provided. End quote.
Now this story comes just a year after it turned
out that the Somalian community in Minnesota had another widespread
(03:22):
fraud case back when during COVID, where they were receiving
federal funds to feed hungry children, and it turned out
that none of the children even existed. The money was
completely being stolen. One of those ringleaders was a woman
named Ayun Akbar, who received the quote Refugee of the
Year award from Tim Wolfs Governor Tim Wolts Minnesota, Kamala
Harris's former running mate. Yes, Minnesota has so many refugees,
(03:47):
and they need to constantly promote this idea of how
wonderful they are. They give a Refugee of the Year award. Then,
of course this story normally came out. But we had
the shooting of the National guardsmen by the Afghan national
in DC and what follow was Trump's immigration moratorium for
more than a dozen countries, including Somalia. Trump being Trump,
(04:08):
used some spicy language about Somalians. He said quote the
Somalia stinks and we don't want them in our country.
End quote. Now, this led to Governor Tim Wold saying
how wonderful the Somalis were in Minnesota, how they are
pillars of the community.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
One local reporter was weeping on camera basically reading the
statement out loud. The New York Times has published op
Bez talked about how you know white Westerners who multi
generational Minnesotas look up to the Somalian communities as real
beacons of pride, that they are part of their community. KSTP,
(04:43):
which is a Minnesota website Minnesota News website, wrote a
piece called Somali Minnesota's generated at least five hundred million
dollars in income annually and pay about sixty seven million
dollars in state and local taxes. Well, this is why
people hate the media. There are fifty four thousand Somali
adults living in Minnesota. That means the average Somalia adults
(05:06):
makes nine thousand dollars a year according to what you're
what you're putting out there, of course that would be true.
Only a third of Somalians in Minnesota are not even working,
so it's probably close to twenty thousand dollars years of
those who are actually even in the labor participation force,
and that means about per person, they're paying one thousand,
(05:27):
two hundred and fifty dollars in taxes per year. Somalian
immigrants send three hundred million dollars a year back to Somalia,
So they're sending five times more money to Somalia than
they are to the tax coffers in Minnesota, and that's
considered a fair trade to the liberal media. They stole
(05:48):
more money from the federal government in the last few years,
and they will contribute over the next decade in local
and state taxes. These people are idiots. I wish I mean,
part of me says says, they don't know what they're
writing about. But I genuinely think that they write this
in a way to make sure that the general public
doesn't know how bad certain pop pockets and populations are
(06:11):
when it comes to contributing to the overall national wealth
and knowledge just GDP, but GDP per capital, the wealth
of the country, the tax dollars, how many per capita
joined the military, all of these indicators. They're lying. They're
completely lying. And the fact that any dysphoria in our
country is contributing more to a foreign government than to
(06:33):
our own local and state speaks Volumes.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
This is why people hate the media. They gin up the.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Story to build sympathy when anyone with a brain cell
can do a calculation and say, wow, that's crazy and
impoverished group of people.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Why do we import so many of them? And that's
what our immigration system does. They regularly imports poverty so
naturally as it is the case to whenever anyone and
criticize has anything to do with immigration, any group within immigrants,
liberals have to sit there and scream from the rooftops.
We are a nation of immigrants. We can't survive without immigrants.
(07:09):
Immigrants built this country, and all the slogans from the
seventies and eighties that only a population that truly incapable
of actually thinking about what they're saying would actually utter
out loud. They try to make people, especially college educated people,
ironically feel that the most patriotic thing that they could
do is important millions of third worlders with no link
(07:31):
to this country, and then insists that they built it
over the success of ancestors that have been here for
generations and the worst part of this ritualistic practice where
people whose you know, whose ancestors are responsible for seventy
five percent of all the technological and medical advancements of
the entire world are is that you know, they're comparing
(07:51):
them to people who never built a railroad system. I mean,
that's the truth.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
If when you look at most of what Somalia not
only has contributed to the world, but some allies own
interior construction, their own bridges and tunnels and rail stations.
The one I think that they have is most of
them are built by the Italians in the nineties. Very
little was actually contribute or the Chinese recently. But aside
from the Chinese and the Italians, not much was contrue
to actually buy some audience to build their own country.
(08:17):
And yet they claim they built ours. Of course, Well,
here's the thing about immigrants. They are Immigrants are not
a bag of oranges, right, You don't have to take
them all because you want one or two. Some immigrant
groups do incredibly well in this country. They're prosperous, they
have low crime rates. They add some into some needed
fields like medicine and technology, and then others do not.
(08:40):
You know, when so often you sit there, and you
hear about immigrants founding billion dollar businesses? Do you know
how few countries those immigrants come from. Twenty five immigrants
from Israel have gone on to found a billion dollar
business in the US, twenty one from China, eighteen from
Ukraine's seventeen from Canada. And I want to guess how
(09:02):
many immigrants from Somalia founded a billion dollar business in
the US. What about Mexican immigrants? Let's take a huge population,
the largest actually of any amigrant group. How many Mexican
immigrants you think founded a billion dollar business in the US.
What about all of Central America whole region? The answer
for that question is actually too And both of them
were Taiwanese immigrants whose parents moved to Honduras sorry Guatemala
(09:27):
before moving to the United States. But they were both
Taiwanese ethnics. So despite the US taking in over fifteen
million people from Mexico and Central America, none aside from Taiwan,
those two Taiwanese immigrants have founded a billion dollar business
in the US. One out of every six thousand immigrants
from Israel has founded a billion dollar business. You have
(09:49):
a better chance of getting struck by lightning twice than
you do of having Mexican and Central American immigrants in
this country founding billion dollar unicorn businesses, and yet we
insist that we must stick in endless supplies because they
could do anything, even though there's no evidence that they will.
Going back to Somalians, the average Somali immigrant has a
(10:10):
net lifetime fiscal impact of negative three hundred thousand dollars
per immigrant. A Somali refugee not legal immigrant, but refugee
is negative four hundred thousand dollars over the course of
their lifetime, and even when you get to second generation,
the net positive impact is about one hundred thousand dollars.
So you need two to three generations to pay for
(10:31):
the first generation of immigrants and four generations three to
four generations to pay for the refugee. Does that make
any sense. Somali immigrants also one of the highest crime
rates in the United States. According to the American Community Survey,
Somali immigrants have a higher incarceration rate than any class
of illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and every race and ethnicity
(10:53):
in America, aside from American Blacks, who have one of
the highest incarceration rates in the entire world, and according
to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, over the course of
two decades from two thousand to twenty eighteen, despite intense
amount of visib financial both private and public resources to
help build and grow the Somali community in Minnesota, Somalian
(11:16):
median household income went from twenty two thousand dollars a
year in the year two thousand. This is household income
twenty two thousand dollars a year in two thousand to
twenty five thousand dollars a year in twenty eighteen, and
that's with an increasing workforce participation. High school graduations went
from fifty four percent to fifty seven percent, with billions
(11:37):
being spent to encourage them to stay in high school
high school, not college high school. And the poverty rate
still looms close to fifty percent, although it is down
from sixty three percent in the year two thousand. So,
once again, why are we not allowed to talk about
immigrant groups accurately? Why are we not allowed to lay
out the numbers and say here's where immigrant groups perform
(12:00):
on crime, welfare, dependency, poverty, education, social mobility, social capital.
This is not a net benefit to our country, even
if a few occasionally open up a decent ethnic restaurant
that does not justify bringing in tens of thousands of people.
(12:20):
And by keeping Americans in the dark on the actual statistics,
lumping all immigrants into the same quote unquote bag of
oranges that I allude to earlier, it allows the American
tax dollar to be ripped taxpayer to be ripped off
by these groups that have no reason to be in
our country. It luves the most successful immigrants with the
least successful and says you must take all of them.
(12:42):
There is absolutely no difference, and if you see a difference,
it is a racial issue for you. Let's have an
honest discussion based on the data. This is not about
hating some Allians. I don't hate some Allians. I don't
even really I don't think I don't know a Somalian.
But I love America. And Minnesota was once one of
the highest, you know, social trust states in the country.
(13:03):
It was a thriving, you know state. It was a
state that you know, rose from the Golden Girls came
from where it was Norwetic Norwegian. They had a social
welfare program that had high levels of trust and enormously
people paying into the system. That they had done back
in Scandinavia, back when their parents and grandparents come to
the state. It is being abused and ripped off, and
(13:24):
that culture that build those systems will fall apart because
no one trusts each other, because you have brought in
communities of people with immense low social trust that sit
there and use the system to scam Americans. Importing tens
of thousand Somalians was not the smartest move. And only
now can we sit there and have a conversation and say, one,
(13:46):
how do we deal with those here who shouldn't be here,
who probably scammed even get in the country, And two
like maybe somebody member of Congress and married her own brother,
And two how do we sit there and work to
make sure that this does not happen with future immigrant groups,
because there's a lot more of them that have not
yet made it to the United States that would love
to get here. Up next with me on this podcast
(14:07):
is the man who broke that story on the Somalian
welfare fraud that's coming up.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Ryan Thorpe is an investigative journalist at THEM Manhattan Institute
and the man who helped break the story in the
Somalian refugees and the massive welfare fraud. Ryan, thank you
for being on to pleasure to join. So now, Ryan,
for those who just read, you know, it's very funny
a lot of times in conservative media because we'll break
a story and then the New York Times will follow
three weeks later and they get more attention. But for
(14:36):
those who just followed, like the New York Times story,
they may not have known exactly how this worked. How
did these dozens of Somalian refugees, you know, use the
system to steal you know, a billion dollars, more than
a billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, what I would say about the fraud rings that
have been exposed to date is they kind of followed
a fairly similar script. So they were targeting a range
of government welfare programs in the state. These programs almost
seemed specifically designed in order to facilitate fraud in some ways.
We're talking about very low barriers for reimbursements or to
(15:13):
get access to the funds. In the first place. They
were simply you know, inflating costs, saying that they were
providing services that they had no intention of ever providing.
And then what we saw was a real kind of
perfect storm of conditions in the state of Minnesota that
allowed this to go on for so long. So you
had a very insular, kind of clan based tribal Somali
(15:35):
community in the state. You had some of the most
generous welfare programs in the country. You had a progressive
political class that was kind of terrifraud terrified of pointing
out what was going on and fearful of being accused
of racism. And the smallies are also a sizable voting
block in that state as well, So there were real
political calculations at play here that allowed this situation to
(15:58):
get so bad.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I think it's such a key well, I mean, that
was a really easy and thorough breakdown, but that's such
a key thing of a key component of the fear
of both political correctness and political retribution that has really
enabled I mean, it's it's very true in the Somali community,
but it's also true in other communities in this country,
(16:20):
in pockets where small demographics have huge weights in voting
and other things. How much of a role do you
think that Tim Waltz personally played in both enabling the
situation and really kind of crushing down any kind of
descent against against the Somalian community.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Well, what I would point to is that there are
whistleblowers within the state government in Minnesota who work at DHS,
and they've been trying to raise alarm bells, both internally
and externally for quite some time. And you know, these
are hundreds of employees who have seen from the inside
what is going on and have tried to, you know,
do what's right and to put to it. And they
(17:01):
really point to timwalt as the individual who's primarily responsible here.
They have signaled that they're fearful of retribution, and we've
also seen official reports that have been released that have
pointed to a number of failures of the Waltz government. So,
I mean, look, he's the governor. In some sense, the
buck stops with him. We're talking about more than a
(17:22):
billion dollars that have been defrauded from taxpayers under his
watch in a handful of years. Here. Responsibility is somewhat inescapable.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
For him, and I think it's important to remember it
wasn't over a billion over twenty years, or a billion
over a decade. Even it was a billion over a
very very short period of time in a state that's not.
I mean, Minnesota is not a small state, but it's
not Texas, it's not California or Florida or New York.
It's not this giant monolith of the state. It is
a reasonably small state when it comes to this. What
(17:54):
the reaction to this story is interesting because it follows
and I don't know if you have I'm sure you
have heard about it, but the Somalian case with food
food and welfare payments for food for children during COVID.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Are you aware of that story? Absolutely? Yeah, I mean
that was kind of I think the first large scale
fraud ring that we, you know, authorities recognized like this
is a huge problem. And then since then we've seen
other fraud rings that have followed a very similar script. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
So in that case, they a bunch of dozens I
think fifty nine Smolians was the exact number of we're
saying that they were paying for food during COVID with
COVID welfare payments towards hungry children, and the children didn't exist,
the food program didn't exist. They were just banking on everything.
And one of the women who were the lead, I
guess ring leaders, the entire organization actually was a there's
(18:47):
an award in Minnesota called Refugee of the Year Award.
Are you aware of that?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I haven't heard this.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
The woman who got the award that like the year prior,
was the one who was the ring leader of this
program to.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Rob tack e payers.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
This isn't just a Somalian issue, obviously, where you see
rings of this, but it seems like it's an ethnic
enclave issue where you have very very specific groups of
people who are not assimilated to a broader culture and
really have immense voting power in Somali. I think it's
fifty six thousand or fifty eight thousand registered to vote
(19:23):
in that state specifically, and that's immense when it's not
not a terribly big state. What do you think that
this opens the door for further investigations into that specific community,
especially considering we've seen two in one year.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Certainly, I mean, what prosecutors have made quite clear is
like we're scratching the surface in terms of the true
scope of this fraud. So I'm quite comfortable saying that,
you know, we're talking about billions of dollars year, but
in terms of the total dollar figure like that still
remains unclear at this point. The US Attorney's Office has
been doing great work in that state, but I think
(19:58):
that they were undermanned a well in terms of having
enough resources to dedicate to this problem. Given the sheer
scope that we're talking about, I think that there's more
to learn in terms of the true scope of the fraud.
And then I think there's some serious questions about state authorities.
What did they do, when did they figure things out?
What was the response? What was the lack of the response?
(20:20):
So I think that those are two avenues that we
need to keep digging into. Now.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I know, I mean a lot of people who support
a progressive welfare state are well intentioned, you know, it's
not like they are. They do believe that they are
helping the pores of the poor. What could they have
done different? Was it just political agness or was it
complete moulthfeasans of a welfare program that wasn't you know,
wasn't capable of possibly working.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great question. Look,
we can have a policy debate on how best do
we try to help people in our communities that are struggling, Certainly,
and I do think that many of these programs that
were defrauded. You know, you can understand the good intentions them.
We're talking about feeding hungry children, We're talking about trying
to get autism therapy for young kids who are autistic.
(21:07):
We're talking about trying to get like the mentally ill
and people who are homeless or struggling with addiction into
housing so they can try and get back on their feet. Right.
But with these programs like they were designed specifically with
such a low barrier to entry, such a few requirements
in terms of reimbursements that when I was looking at it,
(21:29):
some of them jumped out of me. It's like, Okay,
if you were to design a government program to facilitate fraud,
it would probably look a lot like this one in Minnesota.
I also think that you know, look, this is a
long standing problem. It also ramps up in the pandemic.
So COVID hits this thing that's been festering and kind
of allowed to grow for a number of years. Well,
now we've got more money flying out the door than ever.
(21:50):
We've got progressive political establishment saying like this is an
emergency situation that we're in. We need to get money
into the hands of people who need it will figure
out the tales as we go. So that really allowed
this problem to accelerate. I think, you know, law enforcement
sources I've spoken to have said, we're playing whack a
mole on this side of the fence, right, We're trying
(22:11):
to wrap up these fraud rings, but we really there
isn't a law enforcement solution here. We have to kind
of go back to the drawing board from a policy
standpoint and try and stem the tide of it. So
even for supporters of a progressive welfare state, I think
that they are going to have to have those conversations
and think, Okay, if we want to continue to fund
programs of this nature, how can we do it with
(22:32):
you know, a bit more program integrity.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And the craziest I mean, think about this from to
just think about the sentence, because it was true they
defrauded money for autistic children and it ended up in
the hands of a terrorist organization in Somalia that abuses children.
It is for our right wing perspective, you could not
(22:56):
write that any better in that kind of a headline.
How much of this money of American tax dollar money
ended up in the hands of terrorists?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Do we even know it's very difficult to say. So
a couple of things that I think are really important
to highlight on this. There was some confusion about the
claim that we made in our article. I thought we
were quite clear, but some people seemed confused. So we
weren't alleging that these fraud rings had specifically targeted government
programs defrauded them for the express purpose of fundraising for
(23:27):
Al Shabab. It was more inadvertent than that. So we
know that millions of dollars have been sent back, have
been sent abroad, They've gone through whole wall of networks,
They've landed in Somalia, in areas of that country where
Al Chabalb is in control. You know, everyone I've spoken to,
from FBI to different criminal investigators who have looked at this,
(23:48):
you know, serious people who are well placed and have
a certain degree of expertise here. They have indicated that
absolutely Al SCHIBALV is getting a cut of this money
as it's moving through their territory. So that is the
mechanism by which stolen tax dollars have ended up in
their coffers. In terms of putting a true dollar figure
on it, you know that remains up in the air
(24:09):
and the investigators I speak to you say, it is
incredibly difficult to track this money because it doesn't operate
the same way that a traditional kind of western banking
sector were, so almost by design, it becomes nearly impossible
to try and figure out. Okay, just how much are
we talking about here? But you know, whether or not
it's millions, tens of millions, hundreds of million. Look, the
(24:30):
fact that it's happening at all is a serious problem,
and we need to figure out how to make sure
that that stops.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Well one, and this is kind of my last question.
How I mean, when I did the story on the
Lincoln Project, it was kind of ignored to the New
York Times, and then all of a sudden it was
basically destroyed the in our organization. You guys broke the
story out, and you know, it was you and Chris Rufo,
and immediately it was right wing, you know, right winger
saying this thing, and a the New York Times set
(24:58):
it, and then all of a sudden, I was serious. What
has the what has the reaction from Democrats been, because
now they're saying it's just about Trump andrant him being
anti immigrant, But there this is a truth, this is
a true issue, and has Tim Wltz that he's going
to reform all these welfare programs. Well, I note that
funding for a number of programs has stopped. But I
(25:20):
think we've seen high profile Democrats attempt to deflect. So one, yes,
people will simply point to Trump some of the comments
that he's made and try and make that the central focus.
We've also seen, you know, accusations of racism, you know,
essentially directed towards myself and my my co author, Christopher Ruffo.
I mean, look, people can say what they want. The
(25:42):
first question is is it true?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Like, we have to follow the facts where they lead,
and we have to confront them as we as they
are not how we would like them to be. And
the facts in this case are that it is true.
It's it's happening. So I would think among more serious
minded Democrats they realize, hey, we have a we have
a seri problem on your hands, and we're going to
have to do something about it. But there's been a
lot of deflection to date.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, and you know, it's so fun. Have you ever
heard of the Killer King Hospital Los Angeles? Ever? Hear
the story? There was a hospital in La that was.
I mean, people would go in for a fender bender
and like end up being killed by the hospital staff.
They were hiring criminals who were selling They were selling
like peanuts and popcorn in the hallways of the hospital.
It was insane. And every time this hospital came up
(26:25):
for an investigation and it was reported ten sounds of mouthfeasons,
they would Maxine Waters would say, you're all racist for
sitting there and it's claiming that this is a huge problem.
They always use racism as a deflection for mass corruption
in various pockets of this country. But it is so
important to say it when it's there because it destroys
(26:47):
social trust, especially in a state like Minnesota, which historically had
huge levels of social trust, not as much anymore. Ryan,
Where can people go to read more of your work
and what you're doing coming up next? You have a
lot of very the investigative journal of stuff. So you
can read my work at City Journal, which is a
cityd journal dot org. That's where all my work is
(27:10):
published these days. And then you can also follow me
on x at RK Underscore Thorpe your stuff at City Journal,
which is which is run by the Manhattan Institute. So
That's why some Manhattan instated earlier is fantastic. Really worth
reading your stuff. Thank you so much for doing this podcast, Ryan,
it was great joining you. Now it's time for Asking
Me Anything. If you want to be part of the
(27:31):
Ask Me Anything segment, email me Ryan at numbers Game
podcast dot com. That's Ryan at numbers Game podcast dot com.
I have a bunch of questions to get to before
the end of the year, so I'm very excited. This
question comes from Derek. He says Ryan loved the show.
Two quick questions. The first on whether the border wall
is actually being built. I know BBB had fund set aside,
but I'm curious what the actual progress is. The second
(27:53):
question is the city of European politics. I remember reading
your article in The American Conservative last year at Georgia
Maloney and how well she's navigating the tyrope of Italian
and EU politics moving forward a conservative papuas agenda. Is
that's still the case and is there a momentum across
Europe for populous anti migrant leaders ranging from Rupert Low
and Nigel Farage to Jordan Bardella and the AfD. Derek
(28:16):
Great questions. First, on the border wall, DHS awarded a
contract just a few weeks ago for twenty seven miles
of new wall in Arizona. Secretary Christine nom has had
five waivers signed for border wall construction to try to
continue to continue the construction of it. What it seems
like to me, based upon reading what's going on in Texas, California,
(28:38):
and Arizona, is that they're trying to finish the parts
of the wall that they had the money for, they
were contracted for that President Biden stopped construction on. So
I'm seeing twenty seven miles over in Arizona, and I'm
seeing several about one hundred miles between Texas and California
of trying to finish those repairs. That's what I'm seeing
(28:58):
so far. Hopefully they continued pushing forward on it, but
I'm seeing that's what I'm seeing as far as that goes.
When it comes to Georgia, Maloney, if those who didn't
read the article, Italy has a very strange political system.
So because they were part of fascist Italy back in
the forties, they create a system where the president is
not elected, but he's voted on by both senators and
(29:19):
members of certain social class.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
In Italy, but not by the people.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
And the president has the ability to take over the
government from the prime minister. So Georgia Maloney is the
prime minister, and if the President feels like she has
taken the government into a direction that is not beneficial
for Italy for any purposes, he can dismiss her government,
take it over and appoint bankers or whoever he wants.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
To fill all the roles.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That's why Italy is in part why Italy has never
managed to do a lot with their government, a lot
with reforms.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
That is why.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Georgia Maloney has not been able to do a lot
on popular stuff. I will say border crossings are down substantially.
She has increased legal immigration, but Italy's population is falling
by unbelievable numbers, both because of Italian citizens leaving the
country because it's so poor, but also because of their
extraordinarily low birth rates in the country. And they've been
(30:17):
unable to do that anything about that so far. I
know they've tried policy, you know, policy proposals, but it
hasn't worked. Ultimately, I would sit there and say that
Georgia Maloney's trying to pass this constitutional amendment for several
years now, which would effectively neutralize the role of the
president and make it incapable for the president to take
out the Prime Minister on their own will based on
(30:38):
you know, if they're quote unquote beneficial to the EU
is what they're really saying, let me say beneficial to Italy.
If that goes through, then the ball will be in
Maloney's court to really go you know, ham and do
whatever she wants. Italy's elections are not next year, but
I think that the year after, so she's said to
probably grow her majority and she's working. I think she's
(31:01):
working very very well from a Tyrope as far as
other leaders go, yeah, next year only has I think
the Portuguese presidential elections, and there's the Hungarian parliamentary elections.
There's a lot of local ones, but as far as
major national ones, unless someone's government collapses, which could always happen,
but unless that happens, and those are the only major
ones that are happening throughout Europe. But if you look
(31:21):
at the polls in Portugal, is Schega party is pulling
number one or number two for president, depending on the polls.
Over in France, Jordan Bardella is not only winning the
first round, but the second round of the presidential elections
under the National Rally of Populist National Rally AfD is
pulling in first and Najel Faraj is pulling in first
as well, although let's see Rupert Lowe is able to
(31:42):
sit there and take some support away from him with
his own party. But yeah, populist parties are still a
rising all across Europe. Even in Denmark, where there is
an election coming up next year, the Danish People's parties
increasing substantially. They're pulling, they're running on remedigation. In Sweden,
the center right and nationalist government is likely going to
lose them just because it's very very tight thing. They
(32:02):
have a three c majority, so it's interesting. But overall
the trajectory is very very clear towards national populism throughout Europe.
That's a great question, Derek. I really hope that I
answered it, okay, last question of the show. My name
is Tristan. I live in Delray, Flora. You're incredibly based
in your opinions. Thank you, Tristan. Of course, you've been
talking a lot about data centers and they're a major
(32:22):
issue in Virginia. Living in Florida, are electricy costs is
rather seasonal, high in the summer and lower in the winter,
of course because of air conditioning. I was curious how
data centers were being handled around here, and I am
pleasantly surprised to see that the utility companies essentially have
increased pricing structures for new lows of fifteen megawatts and
large Essentially there's no tax breaks and data centers are
paying their full price. Would you say that Florida model
(32:44):
is the most politically smart in terms of protecting residents?
If not, is there another state that's handling it well?
So this is a great question. Ron Desantas, who is
a really, I mean phenomenal governor, just phenomenal. He really
has done a lot, and he has a robust AI
regulation bill called the AI Bill of Rights. A big
(33:05):
part of it is data center proposals. It says, quote
data center proposals will protect consumers from footing the Bill
of AI data centers. The proposal will protect ratepayers, prohibit
utilities from changing in Florida residents more to support hyper
skilled data center development, to protect taxpayers, no taxpayer substies
for big tech, protect local control, protect Florida water and
(33:26):
protect Florida and for the natural sites in Florida, I
guess the waterways and the national parks and whatever. So
from what I could sit there and see, I did
a little bit of research. DeSantis probably, I mean, he
prohibited utilities from charging customers for more electricity, gas, or
water to hyper scale data center development. He is the
(33:46):
only governor who did this, which is so smart, allowing
local governments prohibit data centers from developing construction when it
comes to saying there and jacking up the rates for customers.
I mean, I read law after law after law, and
Disanta's is on top of us more than anybody else.
As far as other states go, legislation has been proposed
in California, it has yet to pass. The New York
(34:07):
State has proposed a bill where data centers would be
charged for any grid facility upgrades that they need because
of the increased uses. And in Virginia there is an
energy law firm that is proposing somewhat similar, but it
is they're just proposing studies. Basically, they're still the study phase.
So yeah, you're right, Santas. I actually did not know
(34:28):
before researching that Disantas had done so much protect consumers
on electricity prices, and he's done what seems like a
phenomenal job, and he is, as usual with his entire governorship,
far and away above every other governor in the country.
That's what happens when you elect a very smart person.
So yeah, that's that's what I have. You guys have
it the best. I wish I could report. Oh no,
(34:49):
all these other states they've done just as much, but
it is not the truth. Dissanta's is far and away
ahead on the issue and ahead on the curve, which
is why importing for the next voting for the next
governor of Florida is very, very very important to find
somebody who can keep up what he is doing. That's
the show for today. On Thursday's episode is the very
fun episode. I'm having my gen Z staff come and
(35:11):
do pop culture history and news interviews for what happened
to Gen xers and millennials. So it's millennial movies, TV music,
news stories to see how much they know about the
world that existed before them. It's going to be a
lot of fun. Tune in, stay tuned, and I will
see you guys on Thursday.
Welcome back to a Numbers game with Ryan Gerduski. Thank
you guys for being here. It is December eighth, twenty
twenty five, just seventeen days till Christmas. I hope you
are all having a very healthy and happy holiday season
and getting prepared for whatever holiday you're celebrating. I have
done zero Christmas shopping whatsoever so far, so I'll be
in a full blown panic by next week. Anyway, before
(00:23):
I get into the topic of the day, I want
to talk to the young men who are listening, or
to parents who have young sons or nephews and they're
looking for a job and a place. It is a
very rough time in America to sit there and find
a job, especially for a young person. I talk to
young people all the time. I came across a story
(00:46):
over my feet and I was flabbergasted bite and I
wanted to sit there and share it with you guys.
The US is facing a shortage of a merchant marines.
Now what is a merchant marine. There're civilians who operate
commercial ships, transporting cargo and passengers globally, handling navigation, maintenance,
and providing services crucial for trade and military support. The
(01:06):
government is desperate to find new merchant marines. According to
the New York Times, only eight hundred and ten people
graduated coastal Guard qualifications to work on vessels last year.
You may say, Ryan, I never thought about this, Why
would I want this job? Salaries are well into the
six figures for the Military Sealift Command, which was taken
out of regular service last year because the lack of
(01:28):
civilians to work on these boats. The salary was two
hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year for first officers,
along with a seventy one thousand dollars signing bonus and
six months of paid leave offshore. Now, it is tough
work when you're on the boat. It's a lot of
long hours, you know, tough days, but six months, you know,
(01:50):
paid leave, two hundred.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I think for a lot of young men who are
sitting there or maybe listening to the show where your
mom or dad and you're like, what could my kid do?
I just think that this might be a good way
just to give it a shot. Look at this, especially
if you're young and you know you want something to
start in the economy where you can provide for a
family buy a house. One day, I thought I would
share because I know a lot of people out there
are really confused and are looking for something. And pay
(02:15):
two hundred grand a year not a not a bad job.
So anyway, let's get to politics now. So a story
broke back on November nineteenth by City Journal, the writers
Christopher Rufo and Ryan Wroter store of Somalians living in Minnesota.
Dozens of Somalians created a billion dollar plus welfare fraud scheme,
one of the largest in the nation's history, and millions
of these dollars ended up in the hands of the
(02:37):
terrorist group Al Shabab back in Somalia. Now, if you
guys remember your history, Minnesota's and Somalia had one of
the largest recruiting groups in the entire country. We're trying
to join ices back in twenty eleven to twenty sixteen.
The story got moderate play when it's broken by the
City Journal in Manhattan Institute, but by the New York
Times got a hold of the story, it received widespread attention.
(02:59):
According to the Time quote, over the last five years,
law enforcement officials say fraud took root in pockets of
Minnesota Somalian Daysporia as scores of individuals made fortunes by
setting up companies that build state agencies for millions of
dollars worth of social services that were never provided. End quote.
Now this story comes just a year after it turned
out that the Somalian community in Minnesota had another widespread
(03:22):
fraud case back when during COVID, where they were receiving
federal funds to feed hungry children, and it turned out
that none of the children even existed. The money was
completely being stolen. One of those ringleaders was a woman
named Ayun Akbar, who received the quote Refugee of the
Year award from Tim Wolfs Governor Tim Wolts Minnesota, Kamala
Harris's former running mate. Yes, Minnesota has so many refugees,
(03:47):
and they need to constantly promote this idea of how
wonderful they are. They give a Refugee of the Year award. Then,
of course this story normally came out. But we had
the shooting of the National guardsmen by the Afghan national
in DC and what follow was Trump's immigration moratorium for
more than a dozen countries, including Somalia. Trump being Trump,
(04:08):
used some spicy language about Somalians. He said quote the
Somalia stinks and we don't want them in our country.
End quote. Now, this led to Governor Tim Wold saying
how wonderful the Somalis were in Minnesota, how they are
pillars of the community.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
One local reporter was weeping on camera basically reading the
statement out loud. The New York Times has published op
Bez talked about how you know white Westerners who multi
generational Minnesotas look up to the Somalian communities as real
beacons of pride, that they are part of their community. KSTP,
(04:43):
which is a Minnesota website Minnesota News website, wrote a
piece called Somali Minnesota's generated at least five hundred million
dollars in income annually and pay about sixty seven million
dollars in state and local taxes. Well, this is why
people hate the media. There are fifty four thousand Somali
adults living in Minnesota. That means the average Somalia adults
(05:06):
makes nine thousand dollars a year according to what you're
what you're putting out there, of course that would be true.
Only a third of Somalians in Minnesota are not even working,
so it's probably close to twenty thousand dollars years of
those who are actually even in the labor participation force,
and that means about per person, they're paying one thousand,
(05:27):
two hundred and fifty dollars in taxes per year. Somalian
immigrants send three hundred million dollars a year back to Somalia,
So they're sending five times more money to Somalia than
they are to the tax coffers in Minnesota, and that's
considered a fair trade to the liberal media. They stole
(05:48):
more money from the federal government in the last few years,
and they will contribute over the next decade in local
and state taxes. These people are idiots. I wish I mean,
part of me says says, they don't know what they're
writing about. But I genuinely think that they write this
in a way to make sure that the general public
doesn't know how bad certain pop pockets and populations are
(06:11):
when it comes to contributing to the overall national wealth
and knowledge just GDP, but GDP per capital, the wealth
of the country, the tax dollars, how many per capita
joined the military, all of these indicators. They're lying. They're
completely lying. And the fact that any dysphoria in our
country is contributing more to a foreign government than to
(06:33):
our own local and state speaks Volumes.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
This is why people hate the media. They gin up the.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Story to build sympathy when anyone with a brain cell
can do a calculation and say, wow, that's crazy and
impoverished group of people.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Why do we import so many of them? And that's
what our immigration system does. They regularly imports poverty so
naturally as it is the case to whenever anyone and
criticize has anything to do with immigration, any group within immigrants,
liberals have to sit there and scream from the rooftops.
We are a nation of immigrants. We can't survive without immigrants.
(07:09):
Immigrants built this country, and all the slogans from the
seventies and eighties that only a population that truly incapable
of actually thinking about what they're saying would actually utter
out loud. They try to make people, especially college educated people,
ironically feel that the most patriotic thing that they could
do is important millions of third worlders with no link
(07:31):
to this country, and then insists that they built it
over the success of ancestors that have been here for
generations and the worst part of this ritualistic practice where
people whose you know, whose ancestors are responsible for seventy
five percent of all the technological and medical advancements of
the entire world are is that you know, they're comparing
(07:51):
them to people who never built a railroad system. I mean,
that's the truth.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
If when you look at most of what Somalia not
only has contributed to the world, but some allies own
interior construction, their own bridges and tunnels and rail stations.
The one I think that they have is most of
them are built by the Italians in the nineties. Very
little was actually contribute or the Chinese recently. But aside
from the Chinese and the Italians, not much was contrue
to actually buy some audience to build their own country.
(08:17):
And yet they claim they built ours. Of course, Well,
here's the thing about immigrants. They are Immigrants are not
a bag of oranges, right, You don't have to take
them all because you want one or two. Some immigrant
groups do incredibly well in this country. They're prosperous, they
have low crime rates. They add some into some needed
fields like medicine and technology, and then others do not.
(08:40):
You know, when so often you sit there, and you
hear about immigrants founding billion dollar businesses? Do you know
how few countries those immigrants come from. Twenty five immigrants
from Israel have gone on to found a billion dollar
business in the US, twenty one from China, eighteen from
Ukraine's seventeen from Canada. And I want to guess how
(09:02):
many immigrants from Somalia founded a billion dollar business in
the US. What about Mexican immigrants? Let's take a huge population,
the largest actually of any amigrant group. How many Mexican
immigrants you think founded a billion dollar business in the US.
What about all of Central America whole region? The answer
for that question is actually too And both of them
were Taiwanese immigrants whose parents moved to Honduras sorry Guatemala
(09:27):
before moving to the United States. But they were both
Taiwanese ethnics. So despite the US taking in over fifteen
million people from Mexico and Central America, none aside from Taiwan,
those two Taiwanese immigrants have founded a billion dollar business
in the US. One out of every six thousand immigrants
from Israel has founded a billion dollar business. You have
(09:49):
a better chance of getting struck by lightning twice than
you do of having Mexican and Central American immigrants in
this country founding billion dollar unicorn businesses, and yet we
insist that we must stick in endless supplies because they
could do anything, even though there's no evidence that they will.
Going back to Somalians, the average Somali immigrant has a
(10:10):
net lifetime fiscal impact of negative three hundred thousand dollars
per immigrant. A Somali refugee not legal immigrant, but refugee
is negative four hundred thousand dollars over the course of
their lifetime, and even when you get to second generation,
the net positive impact is about one hundred thousand dollars.
So you need two to three generations to pay for
(10:31):
the first generation of immigrants and four generations three to
four generations to pay for the refugee. Does that make
any sense. Somali immigrants also one of the highest crime
rates in the United States. According to the American Community Survey,
Somali immigrants have a higher incarceration rate than any class
of illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and every race and ethnicity
(10:53):
in America, aside from American Blacks, who have one of
the highest incarceration rates in the entire world, and according
to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, over the course of
two decades from two thousand to twenty eighteen, despite intense
amount of visib financial both private and public resources to
help build and grow the Somali community in Minnesota, Somalian
(11:16):
median household income went from twenty two thousand dollars a
year in the year two thousand. This is household income
twenty two thousand dollars a year in two thousand to
twenty five thousand dollars a year in twenty eighteen, and
that's with an increasing workforce participation. High school graduations went
from fifty four percent to fifty seven percent, with billions
(11:37):
being spent to encourage them to stay in high school
high school, not college high school. And the poverty rate
still looms close to fifty percent, although it is down
from sixty three percent in the year two thousand. So,
once again, why are we not allowed to talk about
immigrant groups accurately? Why are we not allowed to lay
out the numbers and say here's where immigrant groups perform
(12:00):
on crime, welfare, dependency, poverty, education, social mobility, social capital.
This is not a net benefit to our country, even
if a few occasionally open up a decent ethnic restaurant
that does not justify bringing in tens of thousands of people.
(12:20):
And by keeping Americans in the dark on the actual statistics,
lumping all immigrants into the same quote unquote bag of
oranges that I allude to earlier, it allows the American
tax dollar to be ripped taxpayer to be ripped off
by these groups that have no reason to be in
our country. It luves the most successful immigrants with the
least successful and says you must take all of them.
(12:42):
There is absolutely no difference, and if you see a difference,
it is a racial issue for you. Let's have an
honest discussion based on the data. This is not about
hating some Allians. I don't hate some Allians. I don't
even really I don't think I don't know a Somalian.
But I love America. And Minnesota was once one of
the highest, you know, social trust states in the country.
(13:03):
It was a thriving, you know state. It was a
state that you know, rose from the Golden Girls came
from where it was Norwetic Norwegian. They had a social
welfare program that had high levels of trust and enormously
people paying into the system. That they had done back
in Scandinavia, back when their parents and grandparents come to
the state. It is being abused and ripped off, and
(13:24):
that culture that build those systems will fall apart because
no one trusts each other, because you have brought in
communities of people with immense low social trust that sit
there and use the system to scam Americans. Importing tens
of thousand Somalians was not the smartest move. And only
now can we sit there and have a conversation and say, one,
(13:46):
how do we deal with those here who shouldn't be here,
who probably scammed even get in the country, And two
like maybe somebody member of Congress and married her own brother,
And two how do we sit there and work to
make sure that this does not happen with future immigrant groups,
because there's a lot more of them that have not
yet made it to the United States that would love
to get here. Up next with me on this podcast
(14:07):
is the man who broke that story on the Somalian
welfare fraud that's coming up.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Ryan Thorpe is an investigative journalist at THEM Manhattan Institute
and the man who helped break the story in the
Somalian refugees and the massive welfare fraud. Ryan, thank you
for being on to pleasure to join. So now, Ryan,
for those who just read, you know, it's very funny
a lot of times in conservative media because we'll break
a story and then the New York Times will follow
three weeks later and they get more attention. But for
(14:36):
those who just followed, like the New York Times story,
they may not have known exactly how this worked. How
did these dozens of Somalian refugees, you know, use the
system to steal you know, a billion dollars, more than
a billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, what I would say about the fraud rings that
have been exposed to date is they kind of followed
a fairly similar script. So they were targeting a range
of government welfare programs in the state. These programs almost
seemed specifically designed in order to facilitate fraud in some ways.
We're talking about very low barriers for reimbursements or to
(15:13):
get access to the funds. In the first place. They
were simply you know, inflating costs, saying that they were
providing services that they had no intention of ever providing.
And then what we saw was a real kind of
perfect storm of conditions in the state of Minnesota that
allowed this to go on for so long. So you
had a very insular, kind of clan based tribal Somali
(15:35):
community in the state. You had some of the most
generous welfare programs in the country. You had a progressive
political class that was kind of terrifraud terrified of pointing
out what was going on and fearful of being accused
of racism. And the smallies are also a sizable voting
block in that state as well, So there were real
political calculations at play here that allowed this situation to
(15:58):
get so bad.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I think it's such a key well, I mean, that
was a really easy and thorough breakdown, but that's such
a key thing of a key component of the fear
of both political correctness and political retribution that has really
enabled I mean, it's it's very true in the Somali community,
but it's also true in other communities in this country,
(16:20):
in pockets where small demographics have huge weights in voting
and other things. How much of a role do you
think that Tim Waltz personally played in both enabling the
situation and really kind of crushing down any kind of
descent against against the Somalian community.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Well, what I would point to is that there are
whistleblowers within the state government in Minnesota who work at DHS,
and they've been trying to raise alarm bells, both internally
and externally for quite some time. And you know, these
are hundreds of employees who have seen from the inside
what is going on and have tried to, you know,
do what's right and to put to it. And they
(17:01):
really point to timwalt as the individual who's primarily responsible here.
They have signaled that they're fearful of retribution, and we've
also seen official reports that have been released that have
pointed to a number of failures of the Waltz government. So,
I mean, look, he's the governor. In some sense, the
buck stops with him. We're talking about more than a
(17:22):
billion dollars that have been defrauded from taxpayers under his
watch in a handful of years. Here. Responsibility is somewhat inescapable.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
For him, and I think it's important to remember it
wasn't over a billion over twenty years, or a billion
over a decade. Even it was a billion over a
very very short period of time in a state that's not.
I mean, Minnesota is not a small state, but it's
not Texas, it's not California or Florida or New York.
It's not this giant monolith of the state. It is
a reasonably small state when it comes to this. What
(17:54):
the reaction to this story is interesting because it follows
and I don't know if you have I'm sure you
have heard about it, but the Somalian case with food
food and welfare payments for food for children during COVID.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Are you aware of that story? Absolutely? Yeah, I mean
that was kind of I think the first large scale
fraud ring that we, you know, authorities recognized like this
is a huge problem. And then since then we've seen
other fraud rings that have followed a very similar script. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
So in that case, they a bunch of dozens I
think fifty nine Smolians was the exact number of we're
saying that they were paying for food during COVID with
COVID welfare payments towards hungry children, and the children didn't exist,
the food program didn't exist. They were just banking on everything.
And one of the women who were the lead, I
guess ring leaders, the entire organization actually was a there's
(18:47):
an award in Minnesota called Refugee of the Year Award.
Are you aware of that?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I haven't heard this.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
The woman who got the award that like the year prior,
was the one who was the ring leader of this
program to.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Rob tack e payers.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
This isn't just a Somalian issue, obviously, where you see
rings of this, but it seems like it's an ethnic
enclave issue where you have very very specific groups of
people who are not assimilated to a broader culture and
really have immense voting power in Somali. I think it's
fifty six thousand or fifty eight thousand registered to vote
(19:23):
in that state specifically, and that's immense when it's not
not a terribly big state. What do you think that
this opens the door for further investigations into that specific community,
especially considering we've seen two in one year.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Certainly, I mean, what prosecutors have made quite clear is
like we're scratching the surface in terms of the true
scope of this fraud. So I'm quite comfortable saying that,
you know, we're talking about billions of dollars year, but
in terms of the total dollar figure like that still
remains unclear at this point. The US Attorney's Office has
been doing great work in that state, but I think
(19:58):
that they were undermanned a well in terms of having
enough resources to dedicate to this problem. Given the sheer
scope that we're talking about, I think that there's more
to learn in terms of the true scope of the fraud.
And then I think there's some serious questions about state authorities.
What did they do, when did they figure things out?
What was the response? What was the lack of the response?
(20:20):
So I think that those are two avenues that we
need to keep digging into. Now.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I know, I mean a lot of people who support
a progressive welfare state are well intentioned, you know, it's
not like they are. They do believe that they are
helping the pores of the poor. What could they have
done different? Was it just political agness or was it
complete moulthfeasans of a welfare program that wasn't you know,
wasn't capable of possibly working.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great question. Look,
we can have a policy debate on how best do
we try to help people in our communities that are struggling, Certainly,
and I do think that many of these programs that
were defrauded. You know, you can understand the good intentions them.
We're talking about feeding hungry children, We're talking about trying
to get autism therapy for young kids who are autistic.
(21:07):
We're talking about trying to get like the mentally ill
and people who are homeless or struggling with addiction into
housing so they can try and get back on their feet. Right.
But with these programs like they were designed specifically with
such a low barrier to entry, such a few requirements
in terms of reimbursements that when I was looking at it,
(21:29):
some of them jumped out of me. It's like, Okay,
if you were to design a government program to facilitate fraud,
it would probably look a lot like this one in Minnesota.
I also think that you know, look, this is a
long standing problem. It also ramps up in the pandemic.
So COVID hits this thing that's been festering and kind
of allowed to grow for a number of years. Well,
now we've got more money flying out the door than ever.
(21:50):
We've got progressive political establishment saying like this is an
emergency situation that we're in. We need to get money
into the hands of people who need it will figure
out the tales as we go. So that really allowed
this problem to accelerate. I think, you know, law enforcement
sources I've spoken to have said, we're playing whack a
mole on this side of the fence, right, We're trying
(22:11):
to wrap up these fraud rings, but we really there
isn't a law enforcement solution here. We have to kind
of go back to the drawing board from a policy
standpoint and try and stem the tide of it. So
even for supporters of a progressive welfare state, I think
that they are going to have to have those conversations
and think, Okay, if we want to continue to fund
programs of this nature, how can we do it with
(22:32):
you know, a bit more program integrity.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And the craziest I mean, think about this from to
just think about the sentence, because it was true they
defrauded money for autistic children and it ended up in
the hands of a terrorist organization in Somalia that abuses children.
It is for our right wing perspective, you could not
(22:56):
write that any better in that kind of a headline.
How much of this money of American tax dollar money
ended up in the hands of terrorists?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Do we even know it's very difficult to say. So
a couple of things that I think are really important
to highlight on this. There was some confusion about the
claim that we made in our article. I thought we
were quite clear, but some people seemed confused. So we
weren't alleging that these fraud rings had specifically targeted government
programs defrauded them for the express purpose of fundraising for
(23:27):
Al Shabab. It was more inadvertent than that. So we
know that millions of dollars have been sent back, have
been sent abroad, They've gone through whole wall of networks,
They've landed in Somalia, in areas of that country where
Al Chabalb is in control. You know, everyone I've spoken to,
from FBI to different criminal investigators who have looked at this,
(23:48):
you know, serious people who are well placed and have
a certain degree of expertise here. They have indicated that
absolutely Al SCHIBALV is getting a cut of this money
as it's moving through their territory. So that is the
mechanism by which stolen tax dollars have ended up in
their coffers. In terms of putting a true dollar figure
on it, you know that remains up in the air
(24:09):
and the investigators I speak to you say, it is
incredibly difficult to track this money because it doesn't operate
the same way that a traditional kind of western banking
sector were, so almost by design, it becomes nearly impossible
to try and figure out. Okay, just how much are
we talking about here? But you know, whether or not
it's millions, tens of millions, hundreds of million. Look, the
(24:30):
fact that it's happening at all is a serious problem,
and we need to figure out how to make sure
that that stops.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Well one, and this is kind of my last question.
How I mean, when I did the story on the
Lincoln Project, it was kind of ignored to the New
York Times, and then all of a sudden it was
basically destroyed the in our organization. You guys broke the
story out, and you know, it was you and Chris Rufo,
and immediately it was right wing, you know, right winger
saying this thing, and a the New York Times set
(24:58):
it, and then all of a sudden, I was serious. What
has the what has the reaction from Democrats been, because
now they're saying it's just about Trump andrant him being
anti immigrant, But there this is a truth, this is
a true issue, and has Tim Wltz that he's going
to reform all these welfare programs. Well, I note that
funding for a number of programs has stopped. But I
(25:20):
think we've seen high profile Democrats attempt to deflect. So one, yes,
people will simply point to Trump some of the comments
that he's made and try and make that the central focus.
We've also seen, you know, accusations of racism, you know,
essentially directed towards myself and my my co author, Christopher Ruffo.
I mean, look, people can say what they want. The
(25:42):
first question is is it true?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Like, we have to follow the facts where they lead,
and we have to confront them as we as they
are not how we would like them to be. And
the facts in this case are that it is true.
It's it's happening. So I would think among more serious
minded Democrats they realize, hey, we have a we have
a seri problem on your hands, and we're going to
have to do something about it. But there's been a
lot of deflection to date.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, and you know, it's so fun. Have you ever
heard of the Killer King Hospital Los Angeles? Ever? Hear
the story? There was a hospital in La that was.
I mean, people would go in for a fender bender
and like end up being killed by the hospital staff.
They were hiring criminals who were selling They were selling
like peanuts and popcorn in the hallways of the hospital.
It was insane. And every time this hospital came up
(26:25):
for an investigation and it was reported ten sounds of mouthfeasons,
they would Maxine Waters would say, you're all racist for
sitting there and it's claiming that this is a huge problem.
They always use racism as a deflection for mass corruption
in various pockets of this country. But it is so
important to say it when it's there because it destroys
(26:47):
social trust, especially in a state like Minnesota, which historically had
huge levels of social trust, not as much anymore. Ryan,
Where can people go to read more of your work
and what you're doing coming up next? You have a
lot of very the investigative journal of stuff. So you
can read my work at City Journal, which is a
cityd journal dot org. That's where all my work is
(27:10):
published these days. And then you can also follow me
on x at RK Underscore Thorpe your stuff at City Journal,
which is which is run by the Manhattan Institute. So
That's why some Manhattan instated earlier is fantastic. Really worth
reading your stuff. Thank you so much for doing this podcast, Ryan,
it was great joining you. Now it's time for Asking
Me Anything. If you want to be part of the
(27:31):
Ask Me Anything segment, email me Ryan at numbers Game
podcast dot com. That's Ryan at numbers Game podcast dot com.
I have a bunch of questions to get to before
the end of the year, so I'm very excited. This
question comes from Derek. He says Ryan loved the show.
Two quick questions. The first on whether the border wall
is actually being built. I know BBB had fund set aside,
but I'm curious what the actual progress is. The second
(27:53):
question is the city of European politics. I remember reading
your article in The American Conservative last year at Georgia
Maloney and how well she's navigating the tyrope of Italian
and EU politics moving forward a conservative papuas agenda. Is
that's still the case and is there a momentum across
Europe for populous anti migrant leaders ranging from Rupert Low
and Nigel Farage to Jordan Bardella and the AfD. Derek
(28:16):
Great questions. First, on the border wall, DHS awarded a
contract just a few weeks ago for twenty seven miles
of new wall in Arizona. Secretary Christine nom has had
five waivers signed for border wall construction to try to
continue to continue the construction of it. What it seems
like to me, based upon reading what's going on in Texas, California,
(28:38):
and Arizona, is that they're trying to finish the parts
of the wall that they had the money for, they
were contracted for that President Biden stopped construction on. So
I'm seeing twenty seven miles over in Arizona, and I'm
seeing several about one hundred miles between Texas and California
of trying to finish those repairs. That's what I'm seeing
(28:58):
so far. Hopefully they continued pushing forward on it, but
I'm seeing that's what I'm seeing as far as that goes.
When it comes to Georgia, Maloney, if those who didn't
read the article, Italy has a very strange political system.
So because they were part of fascist Italy back in
the forties, they create a system where the president is
not elected, but he's voted on by both senators and
(29:19):
members of certain social class.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
In Italy, but not by the people.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
And the president has the ability to take over the
government from the prime minister. So Georgia Maloney is the
prime minister, and if the President feels like she has
taken the government into a direction that is not beneficial
for Italy for any purposes, he can dismiss her government,
take it over and appoint bankers or whoever he wants.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
To fill all the roles.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That's why Italy is in part why Italy has never
managed to do a lot with their government, a lot
with reforms.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
That is why.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Georgia Maloney has not been able to do a lot
on popular stuff. I will say border crossings are down substantially.
She has increased legal immigration, but Italy's population is falling
by unbelievable numbers, both because of Italian citizens leaving the
country because it's so poor, but also because of their
extraordinarily low birth rates in the country. And they've been
(30:17):
unable to do that anything about that so far. I
know they've tried policy, you know, policy proposals, but it
hasn't worked. Ultimately, I would sit there and say that
Georgia Maloney's trying to pass this constitutional amendment for several
years now, which would effectively neutralize the role of the
president and make it incapable for the president to take
out the Prime Minister on their own will based on
(30:38):
you know, if they're quote unquote beneficial to the EU
is what they're really saying, let me say beneficial to Italy.
If that goes through, then the ball will be in
Maloney's court to really go you know, ham and do
whatever she wants. Italy's elections are not next year, but
I think that the year after, so she's said to
probably grow her majority and she's working. I think she's
(31:01):
working very very well from a Tyrope as far as
other leaders go, yeah, next year only has I think
the Portuguese presidential elections, and there's the Hungarian parliamentary elections.
There's a lot of local ones, but as far as
major national ones, unless someone's government collapses, which could always happen,
but unless that happens, and those are the only major
ones that are happening throughout Europe. But if you look
(31:21):
at the polls in Portugal, is Schega party is pulling
number one or number two for president, depending on the polls.
Over in France, Jordan Bardella is not only winning the
first round, but the second round of the presidential elections
under the National Rally of Populist National Rally AfD is
pulling in first and Najel Faraj is pulling in first
as well, although let's see Rupert Lowe is able to
(31:42):
sit there and take some support away from him with
his own party. But yeah, populist parties are still a
rising all across Europe. Even in Denmark, where there is
an election coming up next year, the Danish People's parties
increasing substantially. They're pulling, they're running on remedigation. In Sweden,
the center right and nationalist government is likely going to
lose them just because it's very very tight thing. They
(32:02):
have a three c majority, so it's interesting. But overall
the trajectory is very very clear towards national populism throughout Europe.
That's a great question, Derek. I really hope that I
answered it, okay, last question of the show. My name
is Tristan. I live in Delray, Flora. You're incredibly based
in your opinions. Thank you, Tristan. Of course, you've been
talking a lot about data centers and they're a major
(32:22):
issue in Virginia. Living in Florida, are electricy costs is
rather seasonal, high in the summer and lower in the winter,
of course because of air conditioning. I was curious how
data centers were being handled around here, and I am
pleasantly surprised to see that the utility companies essentially have
increased pricing structures for new lows of fifteen megawatts and
large Essentially there's no tax breaks and data centers are
paying their full price. Would you say that Florida model
(32:44):
is the most politically smart in terms of protecting residents?
If not, is there another state that's handling it well?
So this is a great question. Ron Desantas, who is
a really, I mean phenomenal governor, just phenomenal. He really
has done a lot, and he has a robust AI
regulation bill called the AI Bill of Rights. A big
(33:05):
part of it is data center proposals. It says, quote
data center proposals will protect consumers from footing the Bill
of AI data centers. The proposal will protect ratepayers, prohibit
utilities from changing in Florida residents more to support hyper
skilled data center development, to protect taxpayers, no taxpayer substies
for big tech, protect local control, protect Florida water and
(33:26):
protect Florida and for the natural sites in Florida, I
guess the waterways and the national parks and whatever. So
from what I could sit there and see, I did
a little bit of research. DeSantis probably, I mean, he
prohibited utilities from charging customers for more electricity, gas, or
water to hyper scale data center development. He is the
(33:46):
only governor who did this, which is so smart, allowing
local governments prohibit data centers from developing construction when it
comes to saying there and jacking up the rates for customers.
I mean, I read law after law after law, and
Disanta's is on top of us more than anybody else.
As far as other states go, legislation has been proposed
in California, it has yet to pass. The New York
(34:07):
State has proposed a bill where data centers would be
charged for any grid facility upgrades that they need because
of the increased uses. And in Virginia there is an
energy law firm that is proposing somewhat similar, but it
is they're just proposing studies. Basically, they're still the study phase.
So yeah, you're right, Santas. I actually did not know
(34:28):
before researching that Disantas had done so much protect consumers
on electricity prices, and he's done what seems like a
phenomenal job, and he is, as usual with his entire governorship,
far and away above every other governor in the country.
That's what happens when you elect a very smart person.
So yeah, that's that's what I have. You guys have
it the best. I wish I could report. Oh no,
(34:49):
all these other states they've done just as much, but
it is not the truth. Dissanta's is far and away
ahead on the issue and ahead on the curve, which
is why importing for the next voting for the next
governor of Florida is very, very very important to find
somebody who can keep up what he is doing. That's
the show for today. On Thursday's episode is the very
fun episode. I'm having my gen Z staff come and
(35:11):
do pop culture history and news interviews for what happened
to Gen xers and millennials. So it's millennial movies, TV music,
news stories to see how much they know about the
world that existed before them. It's going to be a
lot of fun. Tune in, stay tuned, and I will
see you guys on Thursday.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com