Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
President Trump is preparing for his big summit with Vladimir
Putin and Alaska.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We've got all the coverage of what the sides are.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Expecting at that meeting, plus good news for the US
economy following President Trump's tariff agenda. More women are joining
the US military, and we've even got an update on
a scandal involving Florida and some of your favorite Republicans.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's all next on the Matt Gates Show. Let's do
this shaking up Washington, d C. We're breaking the fever.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Do you haven't watch this guy on television.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
It's like a machine. He's great.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Matt Gates, as we join you tonight. President Trump is
wheeling and dealing on trade. It's a consequence of his
aggressive tariff strategy. The media keeps acting like tariffs are
the end of the world. Oh no, An average tariff
rate might be at twenty percent. It's the highest since
the Great Depression. Yeah, and back then we had breadlines.
(00:53):
Today we've got bread isles. You can still get a loaf,
a twelve pack of Oreos in a pumpkin spiced latte
at Starbucks. So I think everybody can just chill. The
markets are hitting new highs on a daily basis. So
so much for the pannikins. Let's talk about this so
called trade war with China. War please, we have extended
a ninety day truce. It's not a ward's foreplay. We're
(01:14):
sitting across the table from g like, hey, buddy, we're
gonna keep thirty percent tariff on your stuff. You keep
ten percent on ours. Let's see who blinks. It isn't armageddon.
President Trump won't blink. It's more like poker night. And
guess what President Trump knows he is holding the best hand.
The experts say, but tariffs are a tax on consumers. Yeah,
and my hoa fee is a tax on my sanity.
(01:36):
We're already paying for nonsense. At least this nonsense builds leverage. Ultimately,
it will build buying power for the American consumer that
will make the US dollar go farther. Tariffs are like
the bouncer at the club called the US economy. Sure
he's big, loud and takes a cover charge, but without him,
you get sketchy imports, walking in, stealing wallets, and drinking
(01:58):
all the good hoos. Customs revenue is up two hundred
and seventy three percent since last year.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
The US is making money off of other countries selling
US stuff. That's not a trade war. That's a yard
sale where China's paying us to haul away their junk.
And we're laughing all the way to the bank. By
the way, that's what the billions of dollars coming in
mean for the US economy.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And let's be real.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Trump's using tariffs like a blunt instrument. And that's the
beauty and elegance of it. Everyone else wants to use
a scalpel. You know who uses a scalpel. Surgeons, You
know who uses a hammer? Builders, people who get stuff done.
You can argue policy all day, but when was the
last time the European Union called Joe Biden in a
panic over a trade imbalance, wanting to make a deal.
(02:41):
It never happened. Trump is changing the rules. And here's
the part the media won't tell you. The markets didn't collapse,
the doubt didn't fall into a volcano. After the latest
tariff explanation, the S and P actually rallied investors were like, oh,
thank goodness, at least we know what Trump's doing and
he's not whispering it to ge over a climate conference,
(03:01):
vegan lunch, stability through chaos.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That's the plan. That's President Trump.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Now the legal eagles are challenging tariffs in court, saying
they're unconstitutional, which is hilarious because Congress gave the president
the authority decades ago, figuring no one would have the
guts to actually use it. Trump came in like, thanks
for the keys, I'm taking the tariff mobile for a spin.
And now the same people who pass the laar screaming no,
not like that. And let's not forget tariffs aren't just
(03:30):
about money, they're about respect. When the US slaps a tariff,
it's like the scene in every mob movie where the
boss says, that's a nice economy he got. There be
a shame if something happened to it. The other countries
get the message. We're not just gonna be importing goods.
We're gonna be exporting American dominance and American success. So yeah,
call it a trade war if you want. I call
(03:51):
it an American renovation project. We're tearing down the rotten
walls of bad deals and putting up new ones, stronger ones.
And if your German luxury car costs six thousand dollars more.
Maybe you'll buy a Ford. It's called patriotism. Bottom line,
tariffs are like Brussels sprouts. People complain, but they're good
for you. They build toughness, and in the right hands
(04:11):
like Trump's, they get roasted just right and served with
a side of winning. So next time you hear trade war,
just picture Trump and aviators driving like a bulldozer through
the G seven summit, yelling everything's thirty percent more and
you're gonna like it, because that's how you make America
great again, one tariff at a time. For more on
President Trump's strategy and tariffs, here with us now is
(04:33):
Sam Keebler. He's a board member with American Growth and
Innovation for him. Thanks so much for being with us.
What are you watching right now in the all the
machinations around President Trump's tariffs?
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Hey, Matt, thanks thanks for having me.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Yeah, wow, what a week we've had. I mean, you know,
everyt you look back at Liberation Day back in April,
and you know, political all political stripes were freaking out,
you know, one way or another of how this is
all going to turn out the Mark tank. But as
we've seen, it's bumped back up and Since August one,
we've seen three major major deals between the European Union,
(05:08):
in Japan and South Korea.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
The media seems to try to be willing higher prices
into existence. President Trump's ballast against that seems to be
the encouragement of investment into the United States as part
of these trade deals. It's not just a matter of
imports and exports, but indeed dollars into US markets through
capital investment. How important you think those will be to
(05:31):
strengthen the dollar and make sure that it goes farther
for American families.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
Sure, you see critics already blaming well, you know, sure
there's some revenue coming in, but we still have deficits. Well,
those deficits would have been that regardless of these deals,
and now we have more revenue coming into our treasury.
You saw back in June we actually had our first
surplus in almost eight years since President Trump's first term.
And now what we see in July is another month
(05:58):
of the surplus. So you know, it's working and President
Trump is.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Leading the way.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
And why we see you know, Craig's thinking, you know,
there's gonna be more inflation and that's going to offset
the surplus. With the Treasury, but we haven't seen inflation,
so it's it's two birds and one stone.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
The markets seem to be encouraged that the relationship between
the United States and China, though changing, isn't going to
throw the global economy into a tailspin. What do you
see as the key features of the deal the United
States needs in our ultimate negotiation with China?
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Sure, I think that all revolves around chips and AI.
What we saw this past week was a very interesting
deal between in Nvidia and the President, something that unpresident
has never happened before, and it's uncharted territories, but we
see is a really interesting deal where and Video will
(06:57):
pay fifteen percent of the revenues that they send the
chips to China to the US, which to your point earlier,
will help with more revenue coming into our treasury. So
I think that's something to watch as the President in
China have paused tariffs for another for another ninety days.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And there is also an argument we've seen from the
media that these tariffs will only strengthen bricks, that it
gives a greater incentive for some of those countries to
band together. Our assessment on this program is that the
US market is the most powerful force in the global economy.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
We just have to act like it.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
But are you concerned about the rising influence of bricks
and potentially their hand strengthening is a consequence of tariffs.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I'm not.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
And as you saw with some of our trade deals
with South Korea and the European Union, they agreed to
invest more in US energy. So I still think the
world sees the US as the dominant player. And with
President Trump in the Oval Office, you know, permitting leg
and all of our energy resources are going to be
(08:00):
full fledged, unleashing drill, baby drill, and going to give
the opportunity to flood more oil and gas to the
market and make us on top of the global market again.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And those global markets are only more robust when there
is global peace. We've seen global markets impaired by what
the houthies were doing to global shipping, even though it
wasn't all American goods that were traversing some of those waterways.
But with President Trump now pursuing peace with Russia with
an effort to create some semblance of calm in the
(08:32):
Middle East, do you see a peace dividend dovetailing with
a tariff strategy to be an upward draft on the
gross domestic product of a number of countries.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
I do, and it'll be really interesting to see on
Friday the meeting between President Trump and President Putin.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I think that.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Will really give us a good idea of what to
expect going forward. But like you said, President Trump, he's
always been a peacemaker and I believe he is fully
fledged to keep that promise.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Sam Keebler from the American Growth and Innovation Form, thank
you so much for joining.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Us and sharing your expertise.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Thanks Matt, and coming up, we've got new numbers regarding
female recruitment in the United States military.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
All the media.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Said that if Secretary Hagsath actually required equal standards of
men and women, that it would destroy female participation in
the military.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Actually, just the opposite has happened.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
We've got the present Secretary for the Department of Defense,
Kingsley Wilson, here to explain it to us.
Speaker 6 (09:31):
After a quick break.
Speaker 7 (09:36):
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Speaker 1 (11:49):
We return to our coverage of America's military. Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegsath, initially ruffled feathers with a clear policy
statement women would have to meet the same physical requirements
for men. This does a few things. It ensures that
there's a standard competence across the fighting force.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It also stops the tomfoolery.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
We sought in the Biden administration, where men were calling
themselves women and then demanding less rigor that actually happened.
The media initially rooted against this common sense strategy from
Trump's Pentagon leadership. The USA Today said there would be
concern for women in the military with some of these changes.
Even the Military Time said there were concerns when Secretary
Hegseth relieved female leaders of their command. It's almost as
(12:32):
if the gender neutral decisions of the Secretary of Defense
were being hyper genderized by the media. We wanted to
know how that was impacting the recruitment of women in
our military. Turns out, the female recruitment is soaring. Thousands
more women are joining the ranks of the army this
year compared to the same point last year, and the
Pentagon is calling it the Trump Bump because there is
(12:52):
renewed interest in joining the patriotic effort to defend our nation.
Here to bring us inside the Pentagon's recruiting stratateg G
is the Press Secretary for the Department of Defense, Kingsley Wilson. So,
Kingsley tell us what the numbers are saying about the
recruitment of women in our military.
Speaker 8 (13:08):
The numbers are absolutely fantastic across the board. Matt, thanks
for having me on the program tonight. Happy to be
with you and happy to highlight this incredible success that
we are seeing across our armed forces. Women in particular,
These numbers are fantastic. Under the previous administration, we had
about sixteen thousand female recruits last year. Now we've got
(13:30):
upwards of twenty four thousand. This is a nearly seven
thousand person increase in female recruits alone. And again it's
not just women, it's men too, the Army, the Air Force,
the Navy. Everyone is hitting their metrics early, and it
is a testament to Secretary Hegxeth and President Trump's leadership.
It turns out young Americans want to sign up to
(13:50):
be war fighters. They don't want this ideology that the
previous administration tried to hoist on them. They want to
get back to basics. And that's what we're doing here
at And the numbers are just proof in the pudding.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
More than seven thousand more women.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
That's almost an entire battalion worth of human beings in
the recruits. Fantastic news. I remember when Secretary Hegseth said
that the military would have uniform physical standards and the
media went crazy saying that if there were uniform physical
standards for men and women, that that would deter women.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Why didn't that happen?
Speaker 8 (14:26):
The media has been proven wrong again and again by
this secretary and by this president. The Atlantic just months
ago wrote that President Trump is going to erase women
from the US armed forces. That has proven not to
be the case. Women are signing up, as we said
in droves. Every single American is raising their right arm
(14:47):
to serve under this secretary, and we are proud to
have them. So This is just another instance of the
mainstream media peddling lies and trying to say that things
are going to happen that never pan out, because in reality,
the America people want common sense. They want a military
that's focused on war fighting, that's focused on standards. You
mentioned combat standards. It makes sense for the American people
(15:09):
to have a military where it is the same standard
whether you're a man or a woman. Here at the DoD,
we don't care about sex differences, we don't care about race.
Speaker 9 (15:17):
Can you do the job.
Speaker 8 (15:18):
We are getting back to that criteria, and the American
people love it and they're stepping up and they're proud
to serve under a secretary that's focused on that.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Again, if women are interested in serving in the military,
what would be advice.
Speaker 9 (15:30):
To them, Absolutely sign up.
Speaker 8 (15:33):
There is no better time to serve under this president
and this Secretary's leadership. We are a department that is
focused again on getting back to basics on war fighting,
but we're also focused on protecting the American people. You
see what we're doing at our southern border. It's fantastic
to have a military that is defending our own borders
for a change, right, we spent twenty years defending borders
(15:55):
across the globe while.
Speaker 9 (15:56):
Our own was under siege.
Speaker 8 (15:57):
Now we've got folks at the border curing the American
communities that are right there in El Paso, Texas. We're
excited to be able to work on important efforts like that,
and it will only continue under Secretary heg set So.
I hope we continue to see this recruitment skyrocket. It's
a focus of ours and I'm confident it will.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And what kind of roles will women have in the
military that Secretary Hegseeth and President Trump are building for.
Speaker 8 (16:21):
Tomorrow, all sorts of roles, And again, we want to
have the same uniform standards across this department. So we're
no longer going to have, you know, affirmative action or
people meeting quotas and being given promotions when they aren't deserved.
Speaker 9 (16:36):
We're getting back to merit.
Speaker 8 (16:37):
That is the only thing that's going to matter in
this military. Can you do the job, are you performing,
are you pursuing excellence? Those are the types of things
that women and men want to sign up to do.
They want to be a part of something, especially young people.
Right we've seen a lot of young people across this
country looking for purpose and looking to make a difference,
(16:58):
and the military is a great avenue for them to
do just that. It gives you leadership experience, it allows
you to protect your country, and it instills that patriotism
that we have lost over the previous administration's leadership. So
we're getting back to that and we're making sure that
young people are signing up and proud to serve their
country again.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
It's a great pitch, but you have substantial headwinds. It
is a really high hill to climb. A recent study
showed that eighty seven percent of students in high school
said they either probably or definitely would not be interested
in joining the military. Eighty seven percent. That number shocked me.
What does it tell you?
Speaker 8 (17:37):
It tells me that for too long, we've had a
military that was not focused on what Secretary Hegseth is
focused on, right protecting the homeland, protecting American borders, keeping
our people safe, bringing back standards we were focused under
the previous administration and pronouns in bios and you know,
focusing on transgender care and things of that nature. The
American people when they sign up to join the military,
(17:59):
young people especially, they want to know that they're going
to be demanding more of themselves. They want to know
that they can strive to achieve great things and excellence.
Speaker 9 (18:08):
So that is what we're truly trying to tap into.
Speaker 8 (18:10):
And we've got a great whole of DoD effort here.
We've got a recruitment task Force that we've recently started
up that is going to be headed by a lot
of fantastic folks with innovative ideas to make sure that
we're reaching that next generation. But I think Secretary Hegset's
message really resonates with them, and they really want to
serve under strength.
Speaker 9 (18:29):
At the same time, they see President.
Speaker 8 (18:30):
Trump, who is strong, who is exuding confidence in our
American ability to be excellent and to deter around the globe,
and they want to serve under someone like that.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, it really does showcase the drive of the administration
to get these kind of results this early. I mean,
when you're talking about seven thousand more women compared to
where we were last year wanting to be in the military,
that is a real message.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Those are real numbers.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And this was a crisis that I dealt with constantly
on the Armed Services Committee. Whe we were always wondering
if it was going to be a new ad or
a new slogan or a new pitch, and the reality
is it's what you just said. Inspiring leadership does more
for our recruitment than just about anything else. The congratulations
on the great numbers, and we wish you all the
best in the Pentagon's push to get more patriotic Americans
(19:17):
interested in military service. Kingsley Wilson, the Press Secretary of
the Department of Defense, Thanks as always for being on
the program.
Speaker 9 (19:23):
Thanks so much for having me. Great to join you.
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Coming up, We've got a big story out.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Of Florida regarding Hope Florida.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
It's a charity closely tied to Casey Disantus and new
documents suggest there may have been some tomfoolery regarding how they.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Were using Medicaid dollars.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
We've got the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and
the State Legislature, Alexandrotti, with us after a quick break.
Speaker 7 (20:38):
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Speaker 1 (22:51):
We return to our coverage of Hope, Florida. The scandal
has grown so large it has its own Wikipedia page.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Now here's what happened.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
A multi state Medica provider called Senteen overbuild a lot
of states. They wanted to resolve their dispute with Florida
prior to litigation, so they agreed to pay Florida sixty
seven million dollars. Because they're a medicaid provider, you'd think
that sixty seven million dollars would go to Florida's Medicaid program,
but it all didn't. Fifty seven million went to Medicaid
(23:21):
and ten million was sent to Hope, Florida, the charity
closely tied to Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis. New emails
released show that the medicaid provider Senteen, was basically paying
Governor Desantas's wife's charity with a gun to their head.
They did not want to make this payment to hope
Florida an included language in multiple drafts to make clear
(23:41):
that they were doing this because the Governor of Florida,
through his agencies, was demanding it. They gave a statement
to our show to that exact effect. It seems the
Florida Inspector General wanted no part of this sleazy transaction
that looks a lot like money laundering.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
They were taken.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Off the settlement because it was looking less like a
settlement and more like a shakedown for other purposes. In September,
the Medicaid Provider wrote to the state quote, as stated above,
we would like the Florida Office of Inspector General to
be explicitly listed. Can you explain the reason for the removal?
Even if this language is removed, we understand that the
(24:19):
subsequent language, including all their state department division agencies, bureaus,
plans and or programs of the State of Florida, includes
the office of the Inspector General. We would expect an
email exchange confirming the parties in this agreement on this
point with explicit reference to why the Office of Inspector
General is removed. The Medicaid Provider makes abundantly clear in
(24:40):
their responses that they will bear no responsibility for making
the payment Governor DeSantis directed them to.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Make to Hope, Florida.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
John Guard has been nominated by President Trump to serve
in the federal judiciary. I know mister Guard. He's objectively brilliant,
but he hasn't been confirmed, and his involvement in the Hope,
Florida se scandal as a prior employee of the Florida
Attorney General may have something to do with it. John
Guard sends an email to the agency of her under
(25:08):
Governor de Santas, saying, quote, I get that they negotiated
this in every other state with the ag but they
are negotiating.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
This agreement with AKKA.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
That's the agency run by Dissanas, and this is going
to have to look slightly different. That demand to look
slightly different is a demand to pay off Desantas's wife's charity.
It's not governing, it's thuggery. It's important to note none
of this money taken by the Dessanas's was used personally
(25:38):
for them. We found the claims to that effect unfounded
thus far. But what they did do is take that
money that should have gone to the medicaid program and
through a series of shady financial transactions. They spent the
money on political ads to defeat a voter ballot initiative,
and the current Attorney General of Florida, who has never
won an election in his own right and who managed
(25:59):
the disannas failed presidential campaign to defeat, told us that
they ordered the code read and we should be grateful.
Speaker 10 (26:05):
These other nonprofit organizations that have helped, you know, against
the Amendment three effort, We should be thankful to them,
to all of them. They stepped up in a big way,
and because of that, we won.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Such a shakedown.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That's what makes this language in a draft settlement so interesting.
The DISANUS run Agency for Healthcare Administration try to dump
this clause into the settlement agreement, Whereas the Agency for
Healthcare Administration's pending contracts with managed care plans under the
statewide managed Care program contemplate an expanded role for Hope
(26:39):
Florida in the Medicaid program pursuit to which managed care
plans will be required to collaborate with Hope Florida's Pathways
to Prosperity program to enable eligible Medicaid recipients to gain education,
job and life skills to achieve independence. Okay, how lovely,
but it is so deeply deceptive. Desantas was trying to
(27:02):
tell Senteen that the money that Centeen was going to
pay Casey Desantas's charity was going to go help people
get skills, be independent, get off medicaid.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
But that never happened with this money.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
In fact, the money was just spent on political ads,
routed through the political committee of the current Attorney General,
James Uthmeyer. And it's no surprise that Desantas and Uthmeyer
used Casey's charity because it's basically a shell company with
no real accounting or organization where there's a sense of
what funds are coming in or going out. And that's
(27:37):
not my claim, that is the claim of Joshua Hey,
the chairman.
Speaker 11 (27:41):
Of Hope, Florida Department, has no knowledge, to my understanding,
that that money was coming into the organizations. I cannot
confirm what the funds were used for. No, we have
no monitoring procedures, we have no staff. I'm chairing a
volunteer capacity.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Whenever we post these online, the whole like Disanta's troll machine,
ghest crazy. And I'm not a dissantus hater. I was
Ron de Santas's top surrogate. In his twenty eighteen campaign
for governor. He asked me to be the chairman of
his transition, and I was proudly If ron Desantas could
run for governor again, I'd probably vote for him again.
But that doesn't mean that a governor, even a governor
(28:16):
we like, should be able to leverage the power of
the state to force a payoff to his wife's charity
just to launder that money to his current attorney general
to run political ads.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Even people we like shouldn't be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Joining us now is Florida House of Representative Chairman of
the House Appropriation Subcommittee, Alexandrade. It's his work that really
broke this scandal open. Mister chairman, thanks for joining us.
What was your biggest takeaway in this document.
Speaker 12 (28:44):
Drop, Well, thank you for having me Congresson. My biggest
takeaway was that there was a definitive nexus between the
Governor's office and AKKA in relation to this concept of
injecting this so Florida donation into the settlement agreement last minute.
The timeframe is that there was an EOG meeting and
Executive Office the Governor meeting on September tenth, where the
(29:07):
settlement not including Hope Florida was discussed by AKA, the
Agency and the Governor's office, and the very next day,
on September eleventh, you get these drafts including Hope Florida
for the first time and a five million dollar per
post donation instead of the ten And it was over
the course of two weeks after that that it was
adjusted and included.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Senator Rick Scott has the unique experience of having been
governor of Florida. He was a very successful governor, so
he knows the state in and out, and he has
made statements that John Guard's nomination to the federal bench
will require mister Guard to answer some basic questions about
his involvement in the Hope, Florida scandal. And I have
no judgment about that. Perhaps mister Guard has perfectly good
(29:51):
answers for this. He's undeniably an incandescent intellect. But if
you were Senator Scott, what questions would you have for
John Guard before voting to confirm him to a lifetime
appointment to the federal bench.
Speaker 12 (30:04):
Well, it's a couple, right, Like why were you tripping
over yourself to remove the Attorney General references in the
settlement agreement before it was executed.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Why did you exhibit.
Speaker 12 (30:13):
Concerns about making any representations on behalf of the Attorney
General's office in the settlement to the point where you
were letting hawk and know you were uncomfortable with it
you initially he initially raised red flags and emails saying, Hey,
shouldn't we calculate how much we're supposed to pay the
FEDS back on this amount, especially if we're going to
pay it to two different areas. Those are questions that
(30:34):
I think he should answer. I don't think that should
necessarily hinder or prevent him from taking the bench.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
But those are questions that.
Speaker 12 (30:41):
I think the public deserves an answer to. On top
of that, I made a direct public records request to
mister Guard back in April via telephone. He acknowledged the request,
and he told me who to follow up with at
the AG's office to get the documents that requested of him,
and then the AG's office simply shut down. I never
heard anything until they tried to trade on access to
(31:02):
public records for a puff piece about two weeks ago
in a different news outlet.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
It's very strange, and it's definitely not how the public
records laws work in Florida. I know them well. I
litigated the Public Records Act. You have to comply with
the Public Records Act. It's not optional.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
So we learned a lot about this scandal as a
consequence of the hearings you held and the witnesses you
brought in who had no sense of accounting, and these
shell groups played a really key role in moving money,
I would say improperly from this settlement into political ads.
Do you expect that you'll be calling the people who
(31:39):
ran those shell organizations like Florida Chamber of Commerce CEO
Mark Wilson, to testify so that we can learn more
and perhaps establish some legislative guardrails so people don't take
money like this.
Speaker 12 (31:52):
Well, Connerson, I don't think I need to call them
again to establish these legislative guardrails. I pretty much had
my marching orders as a legislator. I think with those
organizations need to be more worried about his phone calls
from the IRS or CMS Federal Medicaid. Right now, the
Hope Florida Foundation could be subjected to a two point
five million dollar excise tax. You can't take money out
(32:14):
of a five to one C three charity and spend
it on campaign purposes. And if you do that in
excess of the amounts you're allowed to spend, you're subject
to a twenty five percent excise tax on the amounts
you overspend.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
So I'd be more concerned if.
Speaker 12 (32:28):
I were the foundation or these five to one c
fours that funnel this money directly to James's pack about
phone calls from the IRS or CMS or the FBI.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And when you say James are referring to current Florida
Attorney General James Uthmeyer, with him being the ultimate recipient
of these funds, do you see a conflict of interest
for the Attorney General where his own behavior as a
member of the governor staff may have may have had
some contact with these facts.
Speaker 12 (32:56):
Oh, Congressman, The worst conflict you can imagine. You file
what's called a keytam or que tam action, which is
you sitting in the position of the government filing suit
against fraud, waste and abuse such as like a false
claims or a medicaid over charging situation.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
The sole entity, the.
Speaker 12 (33:14):
Sole office in the state that can take that over
from you and you' to latterly dismiss it without taking
it over from you is the Attorney General's office.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
So right now, if I tried to.
Speaker 12 (33:24):
Sue Senteen or the hopeflor A Foundation or the State
and say this transfer of money, this money laundering you
a pack was fraud, waste and abuse. The only person
who had a saying whether or not that case could
go forward would be James Uthmeyer, the recipient of the funds.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
It is an astonishing conflict of interest when you explain
it like that. Should mister Uthmeyer appoint a special council?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Absolutely?
Speaker 12 (33:50):
I think I asked I thought he should resign. I
mean the evidence that we have right now, Unlike any
money laundering case in the history of money laundering, we
know how this money moved, and as you as stutely say,
James Uthmeyer brags about ordering the code read, I think
that that's sufficient for him to resign. From my perspective,
he's absolutely abused his position of public trust. He's used
(34:12):
state coffers as his own political bank account. I don't
believe that he's competent to prosecute anybody else for misuse
of medicaid funds or abuses of public trust.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
At the very least I think.
Speaker 12 (34:22):
He should appoint a special counsel separate from his own
office to clear his name if he actually thinks he
did nothing wrong.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
James uth Myer's never won an election.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
He currently holds the position because he was Ron Desantus's
chief of staff and then the campaign manager for the
failed to Santa's presidential run.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
You're a lawyer. You have won a number of elections.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Are you think about running for Atorney general representative in Trotti?
Speaker 10 (34:43):
No?
Speaker 12 (34:45):
But to your point, I have one several elections. I
think that kind of goes to why I'm not intimidated
by James.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I kind of consider him.
Speaker 12 (34:52):
Like the most successful shady bureaucrat in state politics here
in Florida. But no, I'm not planning on running for
anything else. Person then, I plan on being home with
my family and spending time with my kids and wife.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
I'm sure they will be very grateful.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
And you have provided excellent representation to the Pensacola and
Gulf Breeze areas that you've served. Alex and RODDI, the
chairman of the House Appropriations Committee in the Florida House
of Representatives, on the case to find out if this
misused money is tied back to any criminal activity. We
appreciate you coming on the program and getting to the
bottom of it. Thanks Kija and coming up. President Trump
(35:26):
and President Zelensky spoke on a virtual meeting today in
anticipation of the big summit in Alaska at the end
of the week. We've got JP Linsley, an independent journalist
from Ukraine, here to explain how the reaction is reverberating
throughout Europe and what all the parties are expecting in
this high stakes meeting.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Back in moments.
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Speaker 1 (38:03):
Russia face any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree
to stop the war after your meeting on Friday.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yes, they will will there will be there will be.
I don't have to say there will be very severe consequences.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
The world awaits President Trump and President Putin's upcoming meeting
in Alaska at the end of the week. Today, President
Trump met virtually with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and European leaders.
Here's his assessment of that discussion.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
President Zelensky was on the call. I would rate it
at ten, you know, very very friendly. There's a very
good chance that we're going to have a second meeting,
which will be more productive than the first, because the
first is I'm going to find.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Out where we are and what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
If the first one goes okay, we'll have a quick
second one. I would like to do it almost immediately,
and we'll have a quick second meeting between President Putin
and President Zolensky and myself if they'd like to have
me there, and that would be a meeting where maybe
it could be absolutely work, but the first meeting will
not work. That after certain great things can be gained
(39:07):
in the first It's going to be a very important meeting,
but it's setting the table for the second meeting.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
We wanted to see how people in Ukraine were thinking
about these key events. Joining us from Kiv Ukraine, the
only reporter to be in Ukraine every single day of
the full scale war, independent war journalist to JP Linsley, So, Jp,
how are people reacting to this news that Zelensky and
Trump had a virtual meeting today?
Speaker 13 (39:32):
Hey, Matt, I love from Kiev here at about one
fifteen in the morning, and I'll say you, I know,
we had a moment a difficulty connecting at first, and
it's because I had fallen asleep, which is the most
important thing to say at first, because it has been
so difficult the past month in Kiev to have a
good night's sleep. During the month of July and early
(39:55):
August especially, the Russians were pounding this city never seen before.
As you said, I've been here in Ukraine every single
minute of the full scale in Russian invasion, and it's
the past month. I've never seen anything as bad as
I have the past month in Kiev. But the past
week it's been quiet. There's now ever since this Alaska
(40:17):
summit was announced, Matt, there have been no attacks on Kiev.
It's very important to underscore that Russia has been attacking
other cities throughout Ukraine, sort of hard to pronounce cities
like Zaparizia that don't make it into the headlines. Russia
has been pounding those places, but they've not been attacking
Kiev ever since this summit in Alaska has been announced.
(40:39):
And this is something people talk about on the streets
of Kiev. They said, you know, it's sort of a
similar phenomena.
Speaker 14 (40:46):
When General Kellogg was here in Kiev.
Speaker 13 (40:49):
The day before General Kellogg, Trump's envoy to Ukraine arrived,
there was a horrible attack, and every moment that General
Kellogg was here in Kiev, there were no attacks until
after he left.
Speaker 14 (41:01):
And then the only other.
Speaker 13 (41:03):
Pause we've had has been since this Alaska's summit was announced,
and so everyone so so there's a weird duality here
right now because people are happy because they can sleep
at night, but everyone's feeling the heavy, this heaviness and
that Athens do not go well in this Alaska meeting.
(41:24):
Everyone here in the capital city of Ukraine are prepared
for a horrible, hellish night comes Saturday evening.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
And are the explosions the consequence of drones or munitions
or bombs that have been placed give us a sense
of the Russian war effort as directed at the Ukrainian capital.
Speaker 14 (41:47):
Yeah, Matt, thanks for asking that, because you know it's something.
Speaker 13 (41:49):
That and I you know, when I talk to people
in America, you know, here in Ukraine you get so
used to it.
Speaker 14 (41:54):
But I tell you there was.
Speaker 13 (41:55):
At least three nights during the past month where you know,
again I've been here every moment of this full scale
war where I thought it was the end. I mean,
I said, I was texting people saying I was even
texting Ben Shapiro, who some of us know in the US,
saying I think I think this is I think we're
all I think it's done here. I think it's over.
(42:17):
For at least three nights in the past month, there
were these Russian attacks on Keep City where from about
two o'clock in the morning to about five thirty or
six in the morning, non stop sustained attacks. Every almost
every single second, we would hear the buzzing of the
Iranian designed suicide drones buzzing all over the city. These
(42:41):
drones about the size they have the fort printer like
a mini Cooper, and they're buzzing NonStop over the city,
hundreds of them. And then every once in a while,
punctuated with ballistic missiles, so NonStop, for two or three hours,
you hear non stop the sound of incoming drones and
then every once in a while on missile UH and
the explosions.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
UH.
Speaker 14 (43:01):
Sometimes that explosion is a good sound.
Speaker 13 (43:04):
It's the sound of UH, like the Patriot missiles given
by the US or by other countries in Europe and
made by the US working UH in their defense. But
other times, and and the scariest feeling is when you
hear that incoming buzz of the Iranian drone and you
do not hear air defense. You don't hear gunfire, you
don't hear the Patriot missile. You know, the air defense
(43:26):
has been overwhelmed.
Speaker 14 (43:28):
And and and and and and that would go on
for hours.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
UH.
Speaker 13 (43:31):
And you know, and I sit here in Kiev, UH,
and I'd be in a shelter, for example, with with
UH people from all over the world, UH, you know,
including like like women who come to volunteer UH from German,
here from the US, and they come here and they
believe in what's you know, standing for Ukraine. And but
then they faced this moment where they're like, you know what,
(43:51):
we could all die tonight and uh, and that was
the intensity of really of July uh here in Ukraine.
Speaker 14 (43:58):
But because of ever since this Alaska summit was announced.
Speaker 13 (44:01):
Uh, those attacks have stopped uh here and so so
they're in a sense I think in Ukraine there's a
sense of a bit of a sense of expectation and
hope for what for what could happen, but also that
if things don't go well, it could be a total catastrophe.
And I you know, this is it's something that gets
miss mad in all the headlines. But you know when
(44:22):
when when Biden was president, you know, last summer was
difficult and.
Speaker 14 (44:26):
Very terrible here uh because there was no sense of hope.
Speaker 13 (44:30):
Uh, there was no victory plan from America and people
here felt that and knew it. With President Trump, and
this is what the NATO Secretary General, I think put
pretty eloquently, Mark Rutha. He said, you know, Trump has
at least forced the question, like we're trying to push
things to say, let's get an answer here. And so
you know, I think if you listen to a lot
(44:50):
of the elite commentators and all that, they'll say, you know,
what is Trump doing? But I think on the ground
here and including with people in the military with whom
I speak here in Ukraine and in politics, there's a
sense that you know, at least, thank god, there's some movement,
we have some chance of pushing things. And maybe as
(45:11):
President Trump meets Putin in Alaska, he'll.
Speaker 14 (45:14):
See that this is someone that has to be stopped.
Speaker 13 (45:17):
And I think that the point should not be lost that,
you know, the fact that Putin is meeting Trump in America.
It's in Alaska, but of course, but it's in America.
Speaker 14 (45:28):
It's crucial.
Speaker 13 (45:30):
I think under any other president, you know, such a
meeting would have to happen in a neutral country, and
the fact that Putin has to come to America to meet.
Speaker 14 (45:40):
Trump shows a little bit, I think who's in charge.
Speaker 13 (45:43):
And I think that they're so for those who support Ukraine,
who are a bit nervous about what's happening, what might
happen in Alaska. As someone who you know comes to
American American politics and you know, knows some people in
the White House and understands America, I think that actually
is quite your made that the Russian president is coming
(46:03):
to America to meet Trump. And I think so, you know,
there's a sense that that you know, the fact that
it's not in a neutral place. It shows that America
does have some power there.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
And I think there's a lot of symbolism to Alaska.
I think Alaska is a symbol of potential cooperation between
the United States and Russia in the Arctic in resource extraction.
I think it is a sign that at times, even
when there is a transfer of real estate, there can
be friendly relations.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
And I think it's also a sign that we're not.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
That far away from Russia in Alaska, and there is
a need for peace and stability and a security structure
in Europe that doesn't allow Putent to just change borders
when he wants to, but that also doesn't suck the
United States into a war of Europe's choosing in some
way as a consequence of NATO expansion, but a phenomenal
(47:00):
the JP Linsley, I wish you the ability to get
some sleep tonight, safety and we are hopeful here in
the United States that something good can come out of
this summit on Friday and that we can have more
nights with a good bit of sleep.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Coming up, we'll have a key discussion about the legal
structure around the purchase of tickets in America, whether it's
to a ballgame or a concert, What are you really
buying with a ticket? And can President Trump potentially take
action through the Department of Justice to lower prices?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
It's all after a quick break.
Speaker 6 (47:35):
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video clips from my program Real America and all the
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(48:15):
available to you for free.
Speaker 6 (48:17):
On oan N dot com.
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(49:01):
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(49:22):
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Speaker 1 (49:48):
Tickets, have you ever wondered what you're actually buying when
you buy a ticket to a sporting event or a concert.
I've always believed a ticket is your property. Once you
buy it, it's yours to use, sell, gift, destroy.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
It belongs to you.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
But Ticketmaster and major venues have colluded over years to
denigrate that right. It's actually not considered property at all.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
In their eyes.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
To them, it's just a license to attend a particular event.
So what's the difference between property and a license. Well,
the license is specific to you. Thus, if you want
to transfer license rights, you have to go through ticket Master.
This gives them enormous power over the secondary market. President
Trump wants to bring down prices on everything from food
(50:32):
to your family outing.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
At the ballpark.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
He selected one of the brightest minds in America to
lead his anti trust division at the Department of Justice,
Gail Slater. She's fantastic. John Pierce is an attorney who's
represented Tulci Gabbard rue Giuliani in over fifty January sixth defendants.
He's got a great essay out in the Daily Caller
talking about how the Trump administration is thinking about market power, technology,
(50:56):
and even tickets.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
He is with us now, Thanks so much for being here, John.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
So the Trump administration is really embracing the populism that
comes with attacking market power in the area of tickets.
I found it particularly interesting and I want to get
into kind of what a ticket is legally. Do you
assess it as property that people can dispense with as
they choose, or is a ticket a license.
Speaker 15 (51:20):
The way I view it, in the way I learned
it in law school I believe is it's a license.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Mat Well, I hate that because I want to be
able to buy and sell it as I choose and
not have to go through ticket Master. When you have
some of these entities that are able to control primary
and secondary markets, what does it do to consumers?
Speaker 4 (51:39):
Well, it's really a huge problem for consumers.
Speaker 15 (51:41):
And this is just one of the ways the President
Trump is really fighting for regular people, against monopolies and
against corporate power. So what you have is in the
biggest offender is Live Nation and ticket Master. Ticketmaster controls
eighty percent of the ticket market for major venue events.
Live Nation controls about sixty percent of the promotional business
(52:04):
for these venues. And so what you have is a
vertically stacked monopoly in which Ticketmaster and Live Nation are
making money about four or five ways off of a
major event. They're making money off the promotion for the event,
and for the ticketing, and for all of the things
that occur at the venue with respect to concessions and merchandise,
et cetera, and also corporate sponsorships for the event. So
(52:26):
all that leads to higher prices for consumers and not
great service, et cetera, all the things that come along
with monopolies.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
What would be the opportunity to unlock competitions so consumers
wouldn't be beholden to all of Ticketmaster's wins.
Speaker 15 (52:45):
Yeah, I think the President Trump has the right idea
that he set forth in his executive Order in March.
It's things like going after the automated bots that swoop
in within seconds and buy up vast majorities of the
tickets and then resell them, often on Ticketmaster's own and
reselling websites, so Ticketmaster makes money twice. It would be
things like getting rid of the monopolistic practices some of
(53:07):
the things I already talked about in terms of how
many ways they make money on these events, but also
their actions like retaliation against venues who refuse to go
along with their plan, these long term contracts in which
venues can only sell through Ticketmaster, which prevents any competition,
Things like retaliation against artists who refuse to use Ticketmaster, etc.
(53:33):
And also transparency with respective pricing. So you have this
thing called the Ticketmaster tax, which is essentially all these
different fees that you get tacked on when you buy
a ticket. So instead of a ticket being eighty dollars,
which it says is the price initially, you get the
service charge, you get the facility charge, you get every
other charge, and it ends up being one hundred and
thirty dollars. So those are the things that really should
(53:54):
be focused on. And what has occurred really is that
in response to that executive order, the FDC and DJ
opened up a comment period and then very ironically, at
the end of that comment period, the worst defender, ticket
Master and Live Nation, came in and proposed a reselling cap,
a cap on the prices of reselling tickets, which on
(54:15):
its face might seem like it's consumer friendly, but what
it's designed to do is eliminate the rest of its competition,
all these other resellers like stub Hub, and that will
lead them largely in control of one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Of the market well, and that would of course lead
to all of the problems that we see in monopolies.
When we've seen Republicans control the Department of Justice in
the past, I have been critical of a willingness to
accommodate whatever big business wants. Right, we lived in this
time where, like you know, the unions were the Democrats,
(54:48):
and then the big business was the Republicans. But we
seem to be in this time of great realignment, you know,
Trump getting so much of the labor support, but also
Trump being unwilling along with his administration to just bend
to every whim of big business. What is the apployment
of Gail Slater, a brilliant legal mind to lead the
Anti Trust Division? Tell you about this evolving nature of
(55:11):
how Republicans approach these questions.
Speaker 4 (55:13):
Yeah, I think it's a very good sign.
Speaker 15 (55:15):
I mean, she's very highly respected, and I think it's
another sign that Trump is absolutely, you know, dedicated to
fighting for the little guy. I mean, this very realignment
that you're talking about, that's exactly the right word.
Speaker 14 (55:28):
You know.
Speaker 15 (55:28):
It used to be, like you said, that Democrats purported
to be for the little guy and Republicans were for
the elite.
Speaker 4 (55:33):
It's completely flip flipped around now.
Speaker 14 (55:35):
You know.
Speaker 15 (55:36):
I know, you, for example, are one of the we're
one of the only members of Congress who refuse to
take corporate pack money.
Speaker 4 (55:42):
I know you're from North Florida. I'm from western Pennsylvania.
Speaker 15 (55:46):
You know that used to be an area where it
was really kind of hardcore labor blue dog Democrats. That's
completely completely changed and it's really hardcore manga country. So
I think anything that President Trump can do to live
up to these campaign promises to you know, fighting for
the little guy against corporate monopolies, I think that's going
to you know, continue to redown to his benefit and
(56:06):
the benefit of.
Speaker 4 (56:07):
The MAGA movement.
Speaker 15 (56:08):
As you know, regular people in America really realize that
the Maga Republicans were fighting for them, not the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
And you laid out exactly how you laid out exactly
the game plan that could lower prices with tickets. And
the beautiful thing is it doesn't take Congress. There would
be an opportunity through the Department of Justice and how
they're thinking about these anti trust questions to really really
democratize access to the arts. And hey, you know, on
a day when President Trump is celebrating some of the
great artists at the Kennedy Center, what a good time
(56:38):
to talk about tickets and giving people more access.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
John Pierce, thanks so much for.
Speaker 6 (56:41):
Being on the program.
Speaker 4 (56:42):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
We'll be back tomorrow, nine Eastern six specific make sure
to sign up for the OA and live app. If
you haven't already, you can follow me on ex at
Matt Gates.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
And email us.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
The Mat Gates Show at OA and dot com will
give a little peek into listener feedback on Fridays at the.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
End of the week.
Speaker 1 (56:59):
So we've got a little ways to go. Let's stay
right here, Fine Point. Michelle Rihan is up next. Let's
go get him.
President Trump is preparing for his big summit with Vladimir
Putin and Alaska.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We've got all the coverage of what the sides are.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Expecting at that meeting, plus good news for the US
economy following President Trump's tariff agenda. More women are joining
the US military, and we've even got an update on
a scandal involving Florida and some of your favorite Republicans.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's all next on the Matt Gates Show. Let's do
this shaking up Washington, d C. We're breaking the fever.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Do you haven't watch this guy on television.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
It's like a machine. He's great.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Matt Gates, as we join you tonight. President Trump is
wheeling and dealing on trade. It's a consequence of his
aggressive tariff strategy. The media keeps acting like tariffs are
the end of the world. Oh no, An average tariff
rate might be at twenty percent. It's the highest since
the Great Depression. Yeah, and back then we had breadlines.
(00:53):
Today we've got bread isles. You can still get a loaf,
a twelve pack of Oreos in a pumpkin spiced latte
at Starbucks. So I think everybody can just chill. The
markets are hitting new highs on a daily basis. So
so much for the pannikins. Let's talk about this so
called trade war with China. War please, we have extended
a ninety day truce. It's not a ward's foreplay. We're
(01:14):
sitting across the table from g like, hey, buddy, we're
gonna keep thirty percent tariff on your stuff. You keep
ten percent on ours. Let's see who blinks. It isn't armageddon.
President Trump won't blink. It's more like poker night. And
guess what President Trump knows he is holding the best hand.
The experts say, but tariffs are a tax on consumers. Yeah,
and my hoa fee is a tax on my sanity.
(01:36):
We're already paying for nonsense. At least this nonsense builds leverage. Ultimately,
it will build buying power for the American consumer that
will make the US dollar go farther. Tariffs are like
the bouncer at the club called the US economy. Sure
he's big, loud and takes a cover charge, but without him,
you get sketchy imports, walking in, stealing wallets, and drinking
(01:58):
all the good hoos. Customs revenue is up two hundred
and seventy three percent since last year.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
The US is making money off of other countries selling
US stuff. That's not a trade war. That's a yard
sale where China's paying us to haul away their junk.
And we're laughing all the way to the bank. By
the way, that's what the billions of dollars coming in
mean for the US economy.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
And let's be real.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Trump's using tariffs like a blunt instrument. And that's the
beauty and elegance of it. Everyone else wants to use
a scalpel. You know who uses a scalpel. Surgeons, You
know who uses a hammer? Builders, people who get stuff done.
You can argue policy all day, but when was the
last time the European Union called Joe Biden in a
panic over a trade imbalance, wanting to make a deal.
(02:41):
It never happened. Trump is changing the rules. And here's
the part the media won't tell you. The markets didn't collapse,
the doubt didn't fall into a volcano. After the latest
tariff explanation, the S and P actually rallied investors were like, oh,
thank goodness, at least we know what Trump's doing and
he's not whispering it to ge over a climate conference,
(03:01):
vegan lunch, stability through chaos.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That's the plan. That's President Trump.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Now the legal eagles are challenging tariffs in court, saying
they're unconstitutional, which is hilarious because Congress gave the president
the authority decades ago, figuring no one would have the
guts to actually use it. Trump came in like, thanks
for the keys, I'm taking the tariff mobile for a spin.
And now the same people who pass the laar screaming no,
not like that. And let's not forget tariffs aren't just
(03:30):
about money, they're about respect. When the US slaps a tariff,
it's like the scene in every mob movie where the
boss says, that's a nice economy he got. There be
a shame if something happened to it. The other countries
get the message. We're not just gonna be importing goods.
We're gonna be exporting American dominance and American success. So yeah,
call it a trade war if you want. I call
(03:51):
it an American renovation project. We're tearing down the rotten
walls of bad deals and putting up new ones, stronger ones.
And if your German luxury car costs six thousand dollars more.
Maybe you'll buy a Ford. It's called patriotism. Bottom line,
tariffs are like Brussels sprouts. People complain, but they're good
for you. They build toughness, and in the right hands
(04:11):
like Trump's, they get roasted just right and served with
a side of winning. So next time you hear trade war,
just picture Trump and aviators driving like a bulldozer through
the G seven summit, yelling everything's thirty percent more and
you're gonna like it, because that's how you make America
great again, one tariff at a time. For more on
President Trump's strategy and tariffs, here with us now is
(04:33):
Sam Keebler. He's a board member with American Growth and
Innovation for him. Thanks so much for being with us.
What are you watching right now in the all the
machinations around President Trump's tariffs?
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Hey, Matt, thanks thanks for having me.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Yeah, wow, what a week we've had. I mean, you know,
everyt you look back at Liberation Day back in April,
and you know, political all political stripes were freaking out,
you know, one way or another of how this is
all going to turn out the Mark tank. But as
we've seen, it's bumped back up and Since August one,
we've seen three major major deals between the European Union,
(05:08):
in Japan and South Korea.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
The media seems to try to be willing higher prices
into existence. President Trump's ballast against that seems to be
the encouragement of investment into the United States as part
of these trade deals. It's not just a matter of
imports and exports, but indeed dollars into US markets through
capital investment. How important you think those will be to
(05:31):
strengthen the dollar and make sure that it goes farther
for American families.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
Sure, you see critics already blaming well, you know, sure
there's some revenue coming in, but we still have deficits. Well,
those deficits would have been that regardless of these deals,
and now we have more revenue coming into our treasury.
You saw back in June we actually had our first
surplus in almost eight years since President Trump's first term.
And now what we see in July is another month
(05:58):
of the surplus. So you know, it's working and President
Trump is.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Leading the way.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
And why we see you know, Craig's thinking, you know,
there's gonna be more inflation and that's going to offset
the surplus. With the Treasury, but we haven't seen inflation,
so it's it's two birds and one stone.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
The markets seem to be encouraged that the relationship between
the United States and China, though changing, isn't going to
throw the global economy into a tailspin. What do you
see as the key features of the deal the United
States needs in our ultimate negotiation with China?
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Sure, I think that all revolves around chips and AI.
What we saw this past week was a very interesting
deal between in Nvidia and the President, something that unpresident
has never happened before, and it's uncharted territories, but we
see is a really interesting deal where and Video will
(06:57):
pay fifteen percent of the revenues that they send the
chips to China to the US, which to your point earlier,
will help with more revenue coming into our treasury. So
I think that's something to watch as the President in
China have paused tariffs for another for another ninety days.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
And there is also an argument we've seen from the
media that these tariffs will only strengthen bricks, that it
gives a greater incentive for some of those countries to
band together. Our assessment on this program is that the
US market is the most powerful force in the global economy.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
We just have to act like it.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
But are you concerned about the rising influence of bricks
and potentially their hand strengthening is a consequence of tariffs.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I'm not.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
And as you saw with some of our trade deals
with South Korea and the European Union, they agreed to
invest more in US energy. So I still think the
world sees the US as the dominant player. And with
President Trump in the Oval Office, you know, permitting leg
and all of our energy resources are going to be
(08:00):
full fledged, unleashing drill, baby drill, and going to give
the opportunity to flood more oil and gas to the
market and make us on top of the global market again.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And those global markets are only more robust when there
is global peace. We've seen global markets impaired by what
the houthies were doing to global shipping, even though it
wasn't all American goods that were traversing some of those waterways.
But with President Trump now pursuing peace with Russia with
an effort to create some semblance of calm in the
(08:32):
Middle East, do you see a peace dividend dovetailing with
a tariff strategy to be an upward draft on the
gross domestic product of a number of countries.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
I do, and it'll be really interesting to see on
Friday the meeting between President Trump and President Putin.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I think that.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
Will really give us a good idea of what to
expect going forward. But like you said, President Trump, he's
always been a peacemaker and I believe he is fully
fledged to keep that promise.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Sam Keebler from the American Growth and Innovation Form, thank
you so much for joining.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Us and sharing your expertise.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Thanks Matt, and coming up, we've got new numbers regarding
female recruitment in the United States military.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
All the media.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Said that if Secretary Hagsath actually required equal standards of
men and women, that it would destroy female participation in
the military.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Actually, just the opposite has happened.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
We've got the present Secretary for the Department of Defense,
Kingsley Wilson, here to explain it to us.
Speaker 6 (09:31):
After a quick break.
Speaker 7 (09:36):
Viewers are always asking me how can they watch OAN live.
The solution is simple. It's a streaming platform called cloud tv.
Now it's spelled klowd TV. Simply go to cloudtv dot
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(09:58):
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Go to cloudtv dot com and do it today.
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Hey, did you know that One America News Network has
launched a twenty four to seven Twitter like social media replacement.
We're calling it free Talk forty five. So why is
it branded free Talk forty five? Well, free talk because
you will not be censored for expressing your opinion there,
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So please call your cable company today and kindly ask
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Hey, everyone, here's a question for you.
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What does Roku TV, Apple TV, and Amazon fireTV all
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Or Amazon Fire device.
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Simply go to the app store, search out FORN, then
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Real America.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
We return to our coverage of America's military. Secretary of
Defense Pete Hegsath, initially ruffled feathers with a clear policy
statement women would have to meet the same physical requirements
for men. This does a few things. It ensures that
there's a standard competence across the fighting force.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It also stops the tomfoolery.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
We sought in the Biden administration, where men were calling
themselves women and then demanding less rigor that actually happened.
The media initially rooted against this common sense strategy from
Trump's Pentagon leadership. The USA Today said there would be
concern for women in the military with some of these changes.
Even the Military Time said there were concerns when Secretary
Hegseth relieved female leaders of their command. It's almost as
(12:32):
if the gender neutral decisions of the Secretary of Defense
were being hyper genderized by the media. We wanted to
know how that was impacting the recruitment of women in
our military. Turns out, the female recruitment is soaring. Thousands
more women are joining the ranks of the army this
year compared to the same point last year, and the
Pentagon is calling it the Trump Bump because there is
(12:52):
renewed interest in joining the patriotic effort to defend our nation.
Here to bring us inside the Pentagon's recruiting stratateg G
is the Press Secretary for the Department of Defense, Kingsley Wilson. So,
Kingsley tell us what the numbers are saying about the
recruitment of women in our military.
Speaker 8 (13:08):
The numbers are absolutely fantastic across the board. Matt, thanks
for having me on the program tonight. Happy to be
with you and happy to highlight this incredible success that
we are seeing across our armed forces. Women in particular,
These numbers are fantastic. Under the previous administration, we had
about sixteen thousand female recruits last year. Now we've got
(13:30):
upwards of twenty four thousand. This is a nearly seven
thousand person increase in female recruits alone. And again it's
not just women, it's men too, the Army, the Air Force,
the Navy. Everyone is hitting their metrics early, and it
is a testament to Secretary Hegxeth and President Trump's leadership.
It turns out young Americans want to sign up to
(13:50):
be war fighters. They don't want this ideology that the
previous administration tried to hoist on them. They want to
get back to basics. And that's what we're doing here
at And the numbers are just proof in the pudding.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
More than seven thousand more women.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
That's almost an entire battalion worth of human beings in
the recruits. Fantastic news. I remember when Secretary Hegseth said
that the military would have uniform physical standards and the
media went crazy saying that if there were uniform physical
standards for men and women, that that would deter women.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Why didn't that happen?
Speaker 8 (14:26):
The media has been proven wrong again and again by
this secretary and by this president. The Atlantic just months
ago wrote that President Trump is going to erase women
from the US armed forces. That has proven not to
be the case. Women are signing up, as we said
in droves. Every single American is raising their right arm
(14:47):
to serve under this secretary, and we are proud to
have them. So This is just another instance of the
mainstream media peddling lies and trying to say that things
are going to happen that never pan out, because in reality,
the America people want common sense. They want a military
that's focused on war fighting, that's focused on standards. You
mentioned combat standards. It makes sense for the American people
(15:09):
to have a military where it is the same standard
whether you're a man or a woman. Here at the DoD,
we don't care about sex differences, we don't care about race.
Speaker 9 (15:17):
Can you do the job.
Speaker 8 (15:18):
We are getting back to that criteria, and the American
people love it and they're stepping up and they're proud
to serve under a secretary that's focused on that.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Again, if women are interested in serving in the military,
what would be advice.
Speaker 9 (15:30):
To them, Absolutely sign up.
Speaker 8 (15:33):
There is no better time to serve under this president
and this Secretary's leadership. We are a department that is
focused again on getting back to basics on war fighting,
but we're also focused on protecting the American people. You
see what we're doing at our southern border. It's fantastic
to have a military that is defending our own borders
for a change, right, we spent twenty years defending borders
(15:55):
across the globe while.
Speaker 9 (15:56):
Our own was under siege.
Speaker 8 (15:57):
Now we've got folks at the border curing the American
communities that are right there in El Paso, Texas. We're
excited to be able to work on important efforts like that,
and it will only continue under Secretary heg set So.
I hope we continue to see this recruitment skyrocket. It's
a focus of ours and I'm confident it will.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And what kind of roles will women have in the
military that Secretary Hegseeth and President Trump are building for.
Speaker 8 (16:21):
Tomorrow, all sorts of roles, And again, we want to
have the same uniform standards across this department. So we're
no longer going to have, you know, affirmative action or
people meeting quotas and being given promotions when they aren't deserved.
Speaker 9 (16:36):
We're getting back to merit.
Speaker 8 (16:37):
That is the only thing that's going to matter in
this military. Can you do the job, are you performing,
are you pursuing excellence? Those are the types of things
that women and men want to sign up to do.
They want to be a part of something, especially young people.
Right we've seen a lot of young people across this
country looking for purpose and looking to make a difference,
(16:58):
and the military is a great avenue for them to
do just that. It gives you leadership experience, it allows
you to protect your country, and it instills that patriotism
that we have lost over the previous administration's leadership. So
we're getting back to that and we're making sure that
young people are signing up and proud to serve their
country again.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
It's a great pitch, but you have substantial headwinds. It
is a really high hill to climb. A recent study
showed that eighty seven percent of students in high school
said they either probably or definitely would not be interested
in joining the military. Eighty seven percent. That number shocked me.
What does it tell you?
Speaker 8 (17:37):
It tells me that for too long, we've had a
military that was not focused on what Secretary Hegseth is
focused on, right protecting the homeland, protecting American borders, keeping
our people safe, bringing back standards we were focused under
the previous administration and pronouns in bios and you know,
focusing on transgender care and things of that nature. The
American people when they sign up to join the military,
(17:59):
young people especially, they want to know that they're going
to be demanding more of themselves. They want to know
that they can strive to achieve great things and excellence.
Speaker 9 (18:08):
So that is what we're truly trying to tap into.
Speaker 8 (18:10):
And we've got a great whole of DoD effort here.
We've got a recruitment task Force that we've recently started
up that is going to be headed by a lot
of fantastic folks with innovative ideas to make sure that
we're reaching that next generation. But I think Secretary Hegset's
message really resonates with them, and they really want to
serve under strength.
Speaker 9 (18:29):
At the same time, they see President.
Speaker 8 (18:30):
Trump, who is strong, who is exuding confidence in our
American ability to be excellent and to deter around the globe,
and they want to serve under someone like that.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, it really does showcase the drive of the administration
to get these kind of results this early. I mean,
when you're talking about seven thousand more women compared to
where we were last year wanting to be in the military,
that is a real message.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Those are real numbers.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And this was a crisis that I dealt with constantly
on the Armed Services Committee. Whe we were always wondering
if it was going to be a new ad or
a new slogan or a new pitch, and the reality
is it's what you just said. Inspiring leadership does more
for our recruitment than just about anything else. The congratulations
on the great numbers, and we wish you all the
best in the Pentagon's push to get more patriotic Americans
(19:17):
interested in military service. Kingsley Wilson, the Press Secretary of
the Department of Defense, Thanks as always for being on
the program.
Speaker 9 (19:23):
Thanks so much for having me. Great to join you.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
You know what's rare these days, a pharmacy that's actually
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Coming up, We've got a big story out.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Of Florida regarding Hope Florida.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
It's a charity closely tied to Casey Disantus and new
documents suggest there may have been some tomfoolery regarding how they.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Were using Medicaid dollars.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
We've got the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and
the State Legislature, Alexandrotti, with us after a quick break.
Speaker 7 (20:38):
Hey, did you know that One America News network has
launched a twenty four to seven Twitter like social media replacement.
We're calling it free Talk forty five. So why is
it Brandon free Talk forty five? Well, free talk because
you will not be censored for expressing your opinion there
and forty five, because forty five is are.
Speaker 6 (20:59):
Really lucky number.
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So join us at free Talk forty five and express
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Now you're the customer, and without your feedback, your cable
(21:25):
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What does Roku TV, Apple TV, and Amazon fireTV all
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Or Amazon Fire device.
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Simply go to the app store, search out FORAN, then
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(22:24):
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Speaker 1 (22:51):
We return to our coverage of Hope, Florida. The scandal
has grown so large it has its own Wikipedia page.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Now here's what happened.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
A multi state Medica provider called Senteen overbuild a lot
of states. They wanted to resolve their dispute with Florida
prior to litigation, so they agreed to pay Florida sixty
seven million dollars. Because they're a medicaid provider, you'd think
that sixty seven million dollars would go to Florida's Medicaid program,
but it all didn't. Fifty seven million went to Medicaid
(23:21):
and ten million was sent to Hope, Florida, the charity
closely tied to Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis. New emails
released show that the medicaid provider Senteen, was basically paying
Governor Desantas's wife's charity with a gun to their head.
They did not want to make this payment to hope
Florida an included language in multiple drafts to make clear
(23:41):
that they were doing this because the Governor of Florida,
through his agencies, was demanding it. They gave a statement
to our show to that exact effect. It seems the
Florida Inspector General wanted no part of this sleazy transaction
that looks a lot like money laundering.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
They were taken.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Off the settlement because it was looking less like a
settlement and more like a shakedown for other purposes. In September,
the Medicaid Provider wrote to the state quote, as stated above,
we would like the Florida Office of Inspector General to
be explicitly listed. Can you explain the reason for the removal?
Even if this language is removed, we understand that the
(24:19):
subsequent language, including all their state department division agencies, bureaus,
plans and or programs of the State of Florida, includes
the office of the Inspector General. We would expect an
email exchange confirming the parties in this agreement on this
point with explicit reference to why the Office of Inspector
General is removed. The Medicaid Provider makes abundantly clear in
(24:40):
their responses that they will bear no responsibility for making
the payment Governor DeSantis directed them to.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Make to Hope, Florida.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
John Guard has been nominated by President Trump to serve
in the federal judiciary. I know mister Guard. He's objectively brilliant,
but he hasn't been confirmed, and his involvement in the Hope,
Florida se scandal as a prior employee of the Florida
Attorney General may have something to do with it. John
Guard sends an email to the agency of her under
(25:08):
Governor de Santas, saying, quote, I get that they negotiated
this in every other state with the ag but they
are negotiating.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
This agreement with AKKA.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
That's the agency run by Dissanas, and this is going
to have to look slightly different. That demand to look
slightly different is a demand to pay off Desantas's wife's charity.
It's not governing, it's thuggery. It's important to note none
of this money taken by the Dessanas's was used personally
(25:38):
for them. We found the claims to that effect unfounded
thus far. But what they did do is take that
money that should have gone to the medicaid program and
through a series of shady financial transactions. They spent the
money on political ads to defeat a voter ballot initiative,
and the current Attorney General of Florida, who has never
won an election in his own right and who managed
(25:59):
the disannas failed presidential campaign to defeat, told us that
they ordered the code read and we should be grateful.
Speaker 10 (26:05):
These other nonprofit organizations that have helped, you know, against
the Amendment three effort, We should be thankful to them,
to all of them. They stepped up in a big way,
and because of that, we won.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Such a shakedown.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That's what makes this language in a draft settlement so interesting.
The DISANUS run Agency for Healthcare Administration try to dump
this clause into the settlement agreement, Whereas the Agency for
Healthcare Administration's pending contracts with managed care plans under the
statewide managed Care program contemplate an expanded role for Hope
(26:39):
Florida in the Medicaid program pursuit to which managed care
plans will be required to collaborate with Hope Florida's Pathways
to Prosperity program to enable eligible Medicaid recipients to gain education,
job and life skills to achieve independence. Okay, how lovely,
but it is so deeply deceptive. Desantas was trying to
(27:02):
tell Senteen that the money that Centeen was going to
pay Casey Desantas's charity was going to go help people
get skills, be independent, get off medicaid.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
But that never happened with this money.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
In fact, the money was just spent on political ads,
routed through the political committee of the current Attorney General,
James Uthmeyer. And it's no surprise that Desantas and Uthmeyer
used Casey's charity because it's basically a shell company with
no real accounting or organization where there's a sense of
what funds are coming in or going out. And that's
(27:37):
not my claim, that is the claim of Joshua Hey,
the chairman.
Speaker 11 (27:41):
Of Hope, Florida Department, has no knowledge, to my understanding,
that that money was coming into the organizations. I cannot
confirm what the funds were used for. No, we have
no monitoring procedures, we have no staff. I'm chairing a
volunteer capacity.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Whenever we post these online, the whole like Disanta's troll machine,
ghest crazy. And I'm not a dissantus hater. I was
Ron de Santas's top surrogate. In his twenty eighteen campaign
for governor. He asked me to be the chairman of
his transition, and I was proudly If ron Desantas could
run for governor again, I'd probably vote for him again.
But that doesn't mean that a governor, even a governor
(28:16):
we like, should be able to leverage the power of
the state to force a payoff to his wife's charity
just to launder that money to his current attorney general
to run political ads.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Even people we like shouldn't be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Joining us now is Florida House of Representative Chairman of
the House Appropriation Subcommittee, Alexandrade. It's his work that really
broke this scandal open. Mister chairman, thanks for joining us.
What was your biggest takeaway in this document.
Speaker 12 (28:44):
Drop, Well, thank you for having me Congresson. My biggest
takeaway was that there was a definitive nexus between the
Governor's office and AKKA in relation to this concept of
injecting this so Florida donation into the settlement agreement last minute.
The timeframe is that there was an EOG meeting and
Executive Office the Governor meeting on September tenth, where the
(29:07):
settlement not including Hope Florida was discussed by AKA, the
Agency and the Governor's office, and the very next day,
on September eleventh, you get these drafts including Hope Florida
for the first time and a five million dollar per
post donation instead of the ten And it was over
the course of two weeks after that that it was
adjusted and included.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Senator Rick Scott has the unique experience of having been
governor of Florida. He was a very successful governor, so
he knows the state in and out, and he has
made statements that John Guard's nomination to the federal bench
will require mister Guard to answer some basic questions about
his involvement in the Hope, Florida scandal. And I have
no judgment about that. Perhaps mister Guard has perfectly good
(29:51):
answers for this. He's undeniably an incandescent intellect. But if
you were Senator Scott, what questions would you have for
John Guard before voting to confirm him to a lifetime
appointment to the federal bench.
Speaker 12 (30:04):
Well, it's a couple, right, Like why were you tripping
over yourself to remove the Attorney General references in the
settlement agreement before it was executed.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Why did you exhibit.
Speaker 12 (30:13):
Concerns about making any representations on behalf of the Attorney
General's office in the settlement to the point where you
were letting hawk and know you were uncomfortable with it
you initially he initially raised red flags and emails saying, Hey,
shouldn't we calculate how much we're supposed to pay the
FEDS back on this amount, especially if we're going to
pay it to two different areas. Those are questions that
(30:34):
I think he should answer. I don't think that should
necessarily hinder or prevent him from taking the bench.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
But those are questions that.
Speaker 12 (30:41):
I think the public deserves an answer to. On top
of that, I made a direct public records request to
mister Guard back in April via telephone. He acknowledged the request,
and he told me who to follow up with at
the AG's office to get the documents that requested of him,
and then the AG's office simply shut down. I never
heard anything until they tried to trade on access to
(31:02):
public records for a puff piece about two weeks ago
in a different news outlet.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
It's very strange, and it's definitely not how the public
records laws work in Florida. I know them well. I
litigated the Public Records Act. You have to comply with
the Public Records Act. It's not optional.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
So we learned a lot about this scandal as a
consequence of the hearings you held and the witnesses you
brought in who had no sense of accounting, and these
shell groups played a really key role in moving money,
I would say improperly from this settlement into political ads.
Do you expect that you'll be calling the people who
(31:39):
ran those shell organizations like Florida Chamber of Commerce CEO
Mark Wilson, to testify so that we can learn more
and perhaps establish some legislative guardrails so people don't take
money like this.
Speaker 12 (31:52):
Well, Connerson, I don't think I need to call them
again to establish these legislative guardrails. I pretty much had
my marching orders as a legislator. I think with those
organizations need to be more worried about his phone calls
from the IRS or CMS Federal Medicaid. Right now, the
Hope Florida Foundation could be subjected to a two point
five million dollar excise tax. You can't take money out
(32:14):
of a five to one C three charity and spend
it on campaign purposes. And if you do that in
excess of the amounts you're allowed to spend, you're subject
to a twenty five percent excise tax on the amounts
you overspend.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
So I'd be more concerned if.
Speaker 12 (32:28):
I were the foundation or these five to one c
fours that funnel this money directly to James's pack about
phone calls from the IRS or CMS or the FBI.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And when you say James are referring to current Florida
Attorney General James Uthmeyer, with him being the ultimate recipient
of these funds, do you see a conflict of interest
for the Attorney General where his own behavior as a
member of the governor staff may have may have had
some contact with these facts.
Speaker 12 (32:56):
Oh, Congressman, The worst conflict you can imagine. You file
what's called a keytam or que tam action, which is
you sitting in the position of the government filing suit
against fraud, waste and abuse such as like a false
claims or a medicaid over charging situation.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
The sole entity, the.
Speaker 12 (33:14):
Sole office in the state that can take that over
from you and you' to latterly dismiss it without taking
it over from you is the Attorney General's office.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
So right now, if I tried to.
Speaker 12 (33:24):
Sue Senteen or the hopeflor A Foundation or the State
and say this transfer of money, this money laundering you
a pack was fraud, waste and abuse. The only person
who had a saying whether or not that case could
go forward would be James Uthmeyer, the recipient of the funds.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
It is an astonishing conflict of interest when you explain
it like that. Should mister Uthmeyer appoint a special council?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Absolutely?
Speaker 12 (33:50):
I think I asked I thought he should resign. I
mean the evidence that we have right now, Unlike any
money laundering case in the history of money laundering, we
know how this money moved, and as you as stutely say,
James Uthmeyer brags about ordering the code read, I think
that that's sufficient for him to resign. From my perspective,
he's absolutely abused his position of public trust. He's used
(34:12):
state coffers as his own political bank account. I don't
believe that he's competent to prosecute anybody else for misuse
of medicaid funds or abuses of public trust.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
At the very least I think.
Speaker 12 (34:22):
He should appoint a special counsel separate from his own
office to clear his name if he actually thinks he
did nothing wrong.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
James uth Myer's never won an election.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
He currently holds the position because he was Ron Desantus's
chief of staff and then the campaign manager for the
failed to Santa's presidential run.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
You're a lawyer. You have won a number of elections.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Are you think about running for Atorney general representative in Trotti?
Speaker 10 (34:43):
No?
Speaker 12 (34:45):
But to your point, I have one several elections. I
think that kind of goes to why I'm not intimidated
by James.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I kind of consider him.
Speaker 12 (34:52):
Like the most successful shady bureaucrat in state politics here
in Florida. But no, I'm not planning on running for
anything else. Person then, I plan on being home with
my family and spending time with my kids and wife.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
I'm sure they will be very grateful.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
And you have provided excellent representation to the Pensacola and
Gulf Breeze areas that you've served. Alex and RODDI, the
chairman of the House Appropriations Committee in the Florida House
of Representatives, on the case to find out if this
misused money is tied back to any criminal activity. We
appreciate you coming on the program and getting to the
bottom of it. Thanks Kija and coming up. President Trump
(35:26):
and President Zelensky spoke on a virtual meeting today in
anticipation of the big summit in Alaska at the end
of the week. We've got JP Linsley, an independent journalist
from Ukraine, here to explain how the reaction is reverberating
throughout Europe and what all the parties are expecting in
this high stakes meeting.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Back in moments.
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(37:17):
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Speaker 1 (38:03):
Russia face any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree
to stop the war after your meeting on Friday.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yes, they will will there will be there will be.
I don't have to say there will be very severe consequences.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
The world awaits President Trump and President Putin's upcoming meeting
in Alaska at the end of the week. Today, President
Trump met virtually with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and European leaders.
Here's his assessment of that discussion.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
President Zelensky was on the call. I would rate it
at ten, you know, very very friendly. There's a very
good chance that we're going to have a second meeting,
which will be more productive than the first, because the
first is I'm going to find.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
Out where we are and what we're doing.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
If the first one goes okay, we'll have a quick
second one. I would like to do it almost immediately,
and we'll have a quick second meeting between President Putin
and President Zolensky and myself if they'd like to have
me there, and that would be a meeting where maybe
it could be absolutely work, but the first meeting will
not work. That after certain great things can be gained
(39:07):
in the first It's going to be a very important meeting,
but it's setting the table for the second meeting.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
We wanted to see how people in Ukraine were thinking
about these key events. Joining us from Kiv Ukraine, the
only reporter to be in Ukraine every single day of
the full scale war, independent war journalist to JP Linsley, So, Jp,
how are people reacting to this news that Zelensky and
Trump had a virtual meeting today?
Speaker 13 (39:32):
Hey, Matt, I love from Kiev here at about one
fifteen in the morning, and I'll say you, I know,
we had a moment a difficulty connecting at first, and
it's because I had fallen asleep, which is the most
important thing to say at first, because it has been
so difficult the past month in Kiev to have a
good night's sleep. During the month of July and early
(39:55):
August especially, the Russians were pounding this city never seen before.
As you said, I've been here in Ukraine every single
minute of the full scale in Russian invasion, and it's
the past month. I've never seen anything as bad as
I have the past month in Kiev. But the past
week it's been quiet. There's now ever since this Alaska
(40:17):
summit was announced, Matt, there have been no attacks on Kiev.
It's very important to underscore that Russia has been attacking
other cities throughout Ukraine, sort of hard to pronounce cities
like Zaparizia that don't make it into the headlines. Russia
has been pounding those places, but they've not been attacking
Kiev ever since this summit in Alaska has been announced.
(40:39):
And this is something people talk about on the streets
of Kiev. They said, you know, it's sort of a
similar phenomena.
Speaker 14 (40:46):
When General Kellogg was here in Kiev.
Speaker 13 (40:49):
The day before General Kellogg, Trump's envoy to Ukraine arrived,
there was a horrible attack, and every moment that General
Kellogg was here in Kiev, there were no attacks until
after he left.
Speaker 14 (41:01):
And then the only other.
Speaker 13 (41:03):
Pause we've had has been since this Alaska's summit was announced,
and so everyone so so there's a weird duality here
right now because people are happy because they can sleep
at night, but everyone's feeling the heavy, this heaviness and
that Athens do not go well in this Alaska meeting.
(41:24):
Everyone here in the capital city of Ukraine are prepared
for a horrible, hellish night comes Saturday evening.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
And are the explosions the consequence of drones or munitions
or bombs that have been placed give us a sense
of the Russian war effort as directed at the Ukrainian capital.
Speaker 14 (41:47):
Yeah, Matt, thanks for asking that, because you know it's something.
Speaker 13 (41:49):
That and I you know, when I talk to people
in America, you know, here in Ukraine you get so
used to it.
Speaker 14 (41:54):
But I tell you there was.
Speaker 13 (41:55):
At least three nights during the past month where you know,
again I've been here every moment of this full scale
war where I thought it was the end. I mean,
I said, I was texting people saying I was even
texting Ben Shapiro, who some of us know in the US,
saying I think I think this is I think we're
all I think it's done here. I think it's over.
(42:17):
For at least three nights in the past month, there
were these Russian attacks on Keep City where from about
two o'clock in the morning to about five thirty or
six in the morning, non stop sustained attacks. Every almost
every single second, we would hear the buzzing of the
Iranian designed suicide drones buzzing all over the city. These
(42:41):
drones about the size they have the fort printer like
a mini Cooper, and they're buzzing NonStop over the city,
hundreds of them. And then every once in a while,
punctuated with ballistic missiles, so NonStop, for two or three hours,
you hear non stop the sound of incoming drones and
then every once in a while on missile UH and
the explosions.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
UH.
Speaker 14 (43:01):
Sometimes that explosion is a good sound.
Speaker 13 (43:04):
It's the sound of UH, like the Patriot missiles given
by the US or by other countries in Europe and
made by the US working UH in their defense. But
other times, and and the scariest feeling is when you
hear that incoming buzz of the Iranian drone and you
do not hear air defense. You don't hear gunfire, you
don't hear the Patriot missile. You know, the air defense
(43:26):
has been overwhelmed.
Speaker 14 (43:28):
And and and and and and that would go on
for hours.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
UH.
Speaker 13 (43:31):
And you know, and I sit here in Kiev, UH,
and I'd be in a shelter, for example, with with
UH people from all over the world, UH, you know,
including like like women who come to volunteer UH from German,
here from the US, and they come here and they
believe in what's you know, standing for Ukraine. And but
then they faced this moment where they're like, you know what,
(43:51):
we could all die tonight and uh, and that was
the intensity of really of July uh here in Ukraine.
Speaker 14 (43:58):
But because of ever since this Alaska summit was announced.
Speaker 13 (44:01):
Uh, those attacks have stopped uh here and so so
they're in a sense I think in Ukraine there's a
sense of a bit of a sense of expectation and
hope for what for what could happen, but also that
if things don't go well, it could be a total catastrophe.
And I you know, this is it's something that gets
miss mad in all the headlines. But you know when
(44:22):
when when Biden was president, you know, last summer was
difficult and.
Speaker 14 (44:26):
Very terrible here uh because there was no sense of hope.
Speaker 13 (44:30):
Uh, there was no victory plan from America and people
here felt that and knew it. With President Trump, and
this is what the NATO Secretary General, I think put
pretty eloquently, Mark Rutha. He said, you know, Trump has
at least forced the question, like we're trying to push
things to say, let's get an answer here. And so
you know, I think if you listen to a lot
(44:50):
of the elite commentators and all that, they'll say, you know,
what is Trump doing? But I think on the ground
here and including with people in the military with whom
I speak here in Ukraine and in politics, there's a
sense that you know, at least, thank god, there's some movement,
we have some chance of pushing things. And maybe as
(45:11):
President Trump meets Putin in Alaska, he'll.
Speaker 14 (45:14):
See that this is someone that has to be stopped.
Speaker 13 (45:17):
And I think that the point should not be lost that,
you know, the fact that Putin is meeting Trump in America.
It's in Alaska, but of course, but it's in America.
Speaker 14 (45:28):
It's crucial.
Speaker 13 (45:30):
I think under any other president, you know, such a
meeting would have to happen in a neutral country, and
the fact that Putin has to come to America to meet.
Speaker 14 (45:40):
Trump shows a little bit, I think who's in charge.
Speaker 13 (45:43):
And I think that they're so for those who support Ukraine,
who are a bit nervous about what's happening, what might
happen in Alaska. As someone who you know comes to
American American politics and you know, knows some people in
the White House and understands America, I think that actually
is quite your made that the Russian president is coming
(46:03):
to America to meet Trump. And I think so, you know,
there's a sense that that you know, the fact that
it's not in a neutral place. It shows that America
does have some power there.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
And I think there's a lot of symbolism to Alaska.
I think Alaska is a symbol of potential cooperation between
the United States and Russia in the Arctic in resource extraction.
I think it is a sign that at times, even
when there is a transfer of real estate, there can
be friendly relations.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
And I think it's also a sign that we're not.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
That far away from Russia in Alaska, and there is
a need for peace and stability and a security structure
in Europe that doesn't allow Putent to just change borders
when he wants to, but that also doesn't suck the
United States into a war of Europe's choosing in some
way as a consequence of NATO expansion, but a phenomenal
(47:00):
the JP Linsley, I wish you the ability to get
some sleep tonight, safety and we are hopeful here in
the United States that something good can come out of
this summit on Friday and that we can have more
nights with a good bit of sleep.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Coming up, we'll have a key discussion about the legal
structure around the purchase of tickets in America, whether it's
to a ballgame or a concert, What are you really
buying with a ticket? And can President Trump potentially take
action through the Department of Justice to lower prices?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
It's all after a quick break.
Speaker 6 (47:35):
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including my show Real America. Hey, did you know that
video clips from my program Real America and all the
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(48:15):
available to you for free.
Speaker 6 (48:17):
On oan N dot com.
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(49:01):
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(49:22):
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Speaker 1 (49:48):
Tickets, have you ever wondered what you're actually buying when
you buy a ticket to a sporting event or a concert.
I've always believed a ticket is your property. Once you
buy it, it's yours to use, sell, gift, destroy.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
It belongs to you.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
But Ticketmaster and major venues have colluded over years to
denigrate that right. It's actually not considered property at all.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
In their eyes.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
To them, it's just a license to attend a particular event.
So what's the difference between property and a license. Well,
the license is specific to you. Thus, if you want
to transfer license rights, you have to go through ticket Master.
This gives them enormous power over the secondary market. President
Trump wants to bring down prices on everything from food
(50:32):
to your family outing.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
At the ballpark.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
He selected one of the brightest minds in America to
lead his anti trust division at the Department of Justice,
Gail Slater. She's fantastic. John Pierce is an attorney who's
represented Tulci Gabbard rue Giuliani in over fifty January sixth defendants.
He's got a great essay out in the Daily Caller
talking about how the Trump administration is thinking about market power, technology,
(50:56):
and even tickets.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
He is with us now, Thanks so much for being here, John.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
So the Trump administration is really embracing the populism that
comes with attacking market power in the area of tickets.
I found it particularly interesting and I want to get
into kind of what a ticket is legally. Do you
assess it as property that people can dispense with as
they choose, or is a ticket a license.
Speaker 15 (51:20):
The way I view it, in the way I learned
it in law school I believe is it's a license.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Mat Well, I hate that because I want to be
able to buy and sell it as I choose and
not have to go through ticket Master. When you have
some of these entities that are able to control primary
and secondary markets, what does it do to consumers?
Speaker 4 (51:39):
Well, it's really a huge problem for consumers.
Speaker 15 (51:41):
And this is just one of the ways the President
Trump is really fighting for regular people, against monopolies and
against corporate power. So what you have is in the
biggest offender is Live Nation and ticket Master. Ticketmaster controls
eighty percent of the ticket market for major venue events.
Live Nation controls about sixty percent of the promotional business
(52:04):
for these venues. And so what you have is a
vertically stacked monopoly in which Ticketmaster and Live Nation are
making money about four or five ways off of a
major event. They're making money off the promotion for the event,
and for the ticketing, and for all of the things
that occur at the venue with respect to concessions and merchandise,
et cetera, and also corporate sponsorships for the event. So
(52:26):
all that leads to higher prices for consumers and not
great service, et cetera, all the things that come along
with monopolies.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
What would be the opportunity to unlock competitions so consumers
wouldn't be beholden to all of Ticketmaster's wins.
Speaker 15 (52:45):
Yeah, I think the President Trump has the right idea
that he set forth in his executive Order in March.
It's things like going after the automated bots that swoop
in within seconds and buy up vast majorities of the
tickets and then resell them, often on Ticketmaster's own and
reselling websites, so Ticketmaster makes money twice. It would be
things like getting rid of the monopolistic practices some of
(53:07):
the things I already talked about in terms of how
many ways they make money on these events, but also
their actions like retaliation against venues who refuse to go
along with their plan, these long term contracts in which
venues can only sell through Ticketmaster, which prevents any competition,
Things like retaliation against artists who refuse to use Ticketmaster, etc.
(53:33):
And also transparency with respective pricing. So you have this
thing called the Ticketmaster tax, which is essentially all these
different fees that you get tacked on when you buy
a ticket. So instead of a ticket being eighty dollars,
which it says is the price initially, you get the
service charge, you get the facility charge, you get every
other charge, and it ends up being one hundred and
thirty dollars. So those are the things that really should
(53:54):
be focused on. And what has occurred really is that
in response to that executive order, the FDC and DJ
opened up a comment period and then very ironically, at
the end of that comment period, the worst defender, ticket
Master and Live Nation, came in and proposed a reselling cap,
a cap on the prices of reselling tickets, which on
(54:15):
its face might seem like it's consumer friendly, but what
it's designed to do is eliminate the rest of its competition,
all these other resellers like stub Hub, and that will
lead them largely in control of one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (54:26):
Of the market well, and that would of course lead
to all of the problems that we see in monopolies.
When we've seen Republicans control the Department of Justice in
the past, I have been critical of a willingness to
accommodate whatever big business wants. Right, we lived in this
time where, like you know, the unions were the Democrats,
(54:48):
and then the big business was the Republicans. But we
seem to be in this time of great realignment, you know,
Trump getting so much of the labor support, but also
Trump being unwilling along with his administration to just bend
to every whim of big business. What is the apployment
of Gail Slater, a brilliant legal mind to lead the
Anti Trust Division? Tell you about this evolving nature of
(55:11):
how Republicans approach these questions.
Speaker 4 (55:13):
Yeah, I think it's a very good sign.
Speaker 15 (55:15):
I mean, she's very highly respected, and I think it's
another sign that Trump is absolutely, you know, dedicated to
fighting for the little guy. I mean, this very realignment
that you're talking about, that's exactly the right word.
Speaker 14 (55:28):
You know.
Speaker 15 (55:28):
It used to be, like you said, that Democrats purported
to be for the little guy and Republicans were for
the elite.
Speaker 4 (55:33):
It's completely flip flipped around now.
Speaker 14 (55:35):
You know.
Speaker 15 (55:36):
I know, you, for example, are one of the we're
one of the only members of Congress who refuse to
take corporate pack money.
Speaker 4 (55:42):
I know you're from North Florida. I'm from western Pennsylvania.
Speaker 15 (55:46):
You know that used to be an area where it
was really kind of hardcore labor blue dog Democrats. That's
completely completely changed and it's really hardcore manga country. So
I think anything that President Trump can do to live
up to these campaign promises to you know, fighting for
the little guy against corporate monopolies, I think that's going
to you know, continue to redown to his benefit and
(56:06):
the benefit of.
Speaker 4 (56:07):
The MAGA movement.
Speaker 15 (56:08):
As you know, regular people in America really realize that
the Maga Republicans were fighting for them, not the Democrats.
Speaker 1 (56:16):
And you laid out exactly how you laid out exactly
the game plan that could lower prices with tickets. And
the beautiful thing is it doesn't take Congress. There would
be an opportunity through the Department of Justice and how
they're thinking about these anti trust questions to really really
democratize access to the arts. And hey, you know, on
a day when President Trump is celebrating some of the
great artists at the Kennedy Center, what a good time
(56:38):
to talk about tickets and giving people more access.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
John Pierce, thanks so much for.
Speaker 6 (56:41):
Being on the program.
Speaker 4 (56:42):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Matt.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
We'll be back tomorrow, nine Eastern six specific make sure
to sign up for the OA and live app. If
you haven't already, you can follow me on ex at
Matt Gates.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
And email us.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
The Mat Gates Show at OA and dot com will
give a little peek into listener feedback on Fridays at the.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
End of the week.
Speaker 1 (56:59):
So we've got a little ways to go. Let's stay
right here, Fine Point. Michelle Rihan is up next. Let's
go get him.
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