Chapter 1: What is the latest Medicaid fraud scandal in Ohio?
I've got to bring my kid to an appointment. Do you know you have a wife? You know I have six kids? I've got a lot of kids. I've got to go different places. That's going to be my excuse. I'm sitting at a hotel in Clearwater, Florida right now. Just waiting.
Romantic Clearwater?
Yeah. I am. I'm thinking of the conversion. I think it's time. Full Scientologist mode. No, I'm not. I'm not. And I don't want to offend any of the Scientologists in the audience, by the way. Not doing that. I'm not. I'm just here. I'm giving a speech. I was doing a debate last night up at Dartmouth.
Yeah, you debated with Mehdi Hassan. How was that? I watched some segments of it, but...
So it was a real delight because it was one of those debates where they actually score it at the end. You know, like it's a monk debate.
I saw that you won. Yeah, that was good.
Thank you. I was I was really pleased to win. We had a nice dinner afterward. You know, it was it was great that I was able to vindicate the president and he, you know, was not vindicated. But the thing I really love about it is I found out. What did you say? His beeper didn't go off. I know someone told me to use the beeper line. I didn't. It was mostly above the belt.
But the one thing I found out after is apparently Mehdi has written a book called How to Win Every Debate, which I now want to put on my mantle.
It's true.
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Chapter 2: How are Democrats in California competing for radical ideas?
But this is happening in red states, too. And so it's very easy to expose and easy to crack down on. I wish it happened a lot sooner. But now that it's happening, it's a good thing. And we've got to go all the way to deport all these people.
Well, one of the things I want to know is how do we actually, how do we rent one of the, I want to own one of these buildings. I feel like the upkeep on the building is fantastic. You have 300 people paying you rent and nobody in the actual building, which means your overhead is non-existent. That is a fabulous deal for the landlord. That was the first one that went through my mind. There you go.
How do I get in on this? It was my move. Exactly.
There you go, Ben, thinking like a landlord. I'm sorry. No, but the thing that I find to be so ridiculous about the conversation around this is that this is in part the consequence of Republicans pushing an idea years ago, one that I myself thought sounded like a good idea, including a lot of smart people to block grant money to all these states.
that basically we would just take money out of the federal government, send it in a block portion to these states, and then they could set up their own programs that they would presumably manage more responsibly than the terrible bureaucrats in Washington. It turns out that bureaucrats can be terrible anywhere, including in Ohio.
And it's the kind of situation that, unfortunately, I think is far more rampant in people's communities than maybe they understood before this whole conversation started, that all of this kind of money flow from D.C. that goes there.
There are a lot of people there who are totally willing to stand in line to fill out forms to do the basic DMV crap that they need to in order to apply for these Medicaid grants and the like and get a lot of money out of it.
And, you know, frankly, I think, you know, the next time that I need to renew something at the DMV, I need to find somebody from one of these Somali families to go and just go through the process for me because they're clearly far more efficient at it than I am.
Now, listen, we're about to dive into all that great Ohio waste, fraud, and abuse. But first, this story from The Daily Wire's very own Luke Rosiak only exists because we have loyal, mission-driven members. Luke spent two months digging through a treasure trove of Doge data. Thank you very much, Elon. And... He was on the ground in Ohio investigating.
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Chapter 3: What actions are being taken against the Virginia Democrat powerbroker?
And this is the problem with these gigantic social welfare systems. If you are a Republican and you're only going to make the case that they need to be more efficient, these social welfare systems, these social welfare systems, if we just could get them more efficient, then they would be good. Then you're arguing at the margins.
The reality is that many of these social welfare systems have actively deprived people of virtue. I mean, just to take a quick example, you know, Social Security, I understand why it exists. No one's arguing for it to go away on a practical level.
But one thing that Social Security has done is it has crowded out investment for the future for people because they believe they're getting a check from the federal government. And it has also crowded out people taking care of their parents and planning for the future in terms of their financial, making sure that their parents are taken care of.
And so what used to be a sort of familial aspect has turned into a governmental aspect. Now you can argue that that's made elderly people more prosperous, that's fine. It is a gigantic social welfare system that's bankrupting the country. But it is true that governmental systems tend to crowd out individual virtue and social virtue. And so I think that's a huge component of this.
I mean, why don't any of these people who are defrauding people millions of dollars feel guilty?
They should feel guilty now. But also, I think one of the things we have to keep in mind is that if we're going to pay people to take care of their elderly relatives, should we be paying boomer grandparents to watch my kids? Because that... I mean, the same kind of idea is kind of there, right?
You know, it's like, wait a minute, maybe this will be a lot easier if we just pay all the boomers who already have taken so much money out of the system to spend more time with their grandchildren, which is something that shows up in poll after poll after poll of parents, younger parents.
Well, and how about, since you make the point, Ben, that these elderly boomers have already taken so much money out of the system, how about we just force them? We repeal the 13th Amendment and force them to watch all the grandkids for free. And we say, look, now we're even. We're not going to get Social Security, but you have to watch the kids.
Speaking of kids, we have Mary Margaret Olihan, who I believe is joining from the White House. I do want to say, we are talking... Oh, yes.
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Chapter 4: How does Trump influence the Republican redistricting wars?
If you don't have a program on the Republican side to actually go small, this is why big government conservatism is never going to last very long. You'll have spates of it in reaction to even bigger government liberalism. But I think that at a certain point, I know it's controversial and I know it's falling out of fashion.
At some point, conservatives may have to argue again for smaller government, not just quote unquote more efficient government.
I mean, look, sorry, go, Ben. I was on the 1998 Social Security and Welfare Reform Commission. That's how old I am. And Clinton and Gingrich and that kind of thing that did all that stuff. And the thing that I want people to keep in mind is as much as welfare reform was a phenomenal achievement at the time that it happened, That's one program.
You never saw that spread the way that it ought to to other programs as well in terms of work incentives, in terms of the demands of actually having people follow the money and make sure that it's not going to people who don't deserve it. And so then you end up with these massive systems that, as Ben says, they're piggy banks for people who do crime.
And they do crime very efficiently, it turns out. And they're very organized at it. You have a low trust sort of population of immigrants combined with a high trust population of Minnesota or Ohio or California, et cetera.
And they can just reap the benefits of knowing how to fill out all the forms, knowing that nobody can really ask questions because if you do, you're just going to get called a racist. And I think that that's something that has to be overcome by Republicans confronting this stuff and taking it on and calling for the end of some of these programs.
I mean, just saying these things, should these things even exist? Let's maybe start with that question as opposed to trying to find different paths toward efficiency or the like, which is what we normally hear from the kind of DC think tank set of we can tweak this and we can turn this knob and things will work a little bit better.
um and i just i don't i don't necessarily see this republican class i just uh was talking to kevin mccarthy right before we started this about what they should do to try to hold back the wave i'm not sure i see this republican class coalescing around that argument in time to have it actually affect the election
Well, and even forget about the Republican class. I think about just the Republican base or the ordinary Republican voters. Because, Ben, the vision that you're promoting, look, I remember it. I was cheering on that vision for a while. I was working on campaigns for entitlement reform. And I remember just as well as all of you do. It flopped. It didn't work. We'd been pushing for it.
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Chapter 5: What investigative work led to the uncovering of fraud?
It didn't smell good. I had people's arms in front of my face. Everyone was laughing at him. Everybody loved him. He was, as the youth say, he was rizzing the crowd. He enjoyed it. It was very clear that he did. He worked in two different lines from popular music song that I'm a little too young to actually realize the references. Maybe you guys know them better than I do.
Insane in the membrane. I feel so old, man. Why are you going to throw that in there, Mary Margaret?
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm getting up there. I have one question about it. Was he lying when he said that he didn't know the names of the people in the room?
Oh, he definitely didn't. I mean, think about it. He was on Capitol Hill. Capitol Hill press is very different than the White House press corps. someone like me, I think I've interviewed him like years and years ago, but it would have been like a one-off, you know, at CPAC or something like that.
It's not like the White House press is spending a lot of time over on Capitol Hill or actually at the State Department. So the reporters that you would know were in the front row. And I think I said this yesterday, but he wasn't calling on the front row too much, which as a member of the new media, I kind of liked because he was calling on the aisles. He was calling on people in the back.
He called on the guy right next to me. So just bouncing around the room he was clearly a little overstimulated by the vibe in there but anyone would be and i don't know ben i think i think he did a good job and i think he really enjoyed himself and for the first time i personally thought oh wow maybe it's going to be him there's no job he can't do yes true
Is that it? Just to follow up on what we were asking about when it comes to the fraud kind of thing. How much time does J.D. really have to spend on this? It is his home state in terms of Ohio. Is he going to kind of do something there? Is he going to get involved there in some kind of greater respect? Do you know of any plans on the vice president's part to dive into that?
Well, the fraud team is taking it on. So this is what they do. They have a massive team here at the White House. A lot of lawyers are involved, different people that I've actually known from different parts of my career, whether they used to be on Capitol Hill or in different government offices. They're all on this fraud team and they're digging in. Of course, the FTC is involved.
Andrew Ferguson, Stephen Miller, all of these people are zoning in on these issues. So while I know their focus is on issues around the country, this is now one of the vice president's top issues. And if it turns out to be true, I imagine that he would be delighted to be able to take ownership of this fraud scandal, which we believe to be true, absolutely.
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Chapter 6: How do waste, fraud, and abuse affect government programs?
One of my favorite parts of the story is the backlash online currently about Fox News being in the vicinity to document what was happening here. So I think it was Bill Malujan that was on the ground and clearly got a tip from the FBI that this was going to be happening. All these liberals online, including Tim Miller, are complaining and saying, you know... oh, how did Fox know this was going on?
And myself and a couple other people pointed out CNN got the exclusive when Roger Stone was arrested by the FBI. They were there with their cameras. Many, many other such instances. But now, you know, that Fox News happened to be on the scene documenting this raid. God forbid this happened. So I've been amused by that from a media criticism perspective because everyone's up in arms about it.
And they're all trying to say that she wasn't close to Spanberger, which is not true as
and just point it out. Yeah, yeah. The truth is that Spanberger, if you know the makeup of her coalition, she's a Northern Virginia person. She needed the support of people like Lucas to bring along the Black vote that was a little more skeptical about Spanberger being such a kind of Nova Karen type when that sort of portion of the vote is so critical to winning in Virginia.
Now, turning from the East Coast over to the West Coast, one story we talked about at the top of the show a little bit that I totally missed last night, because I was doing my little debate over in Dartmouth. There was a much bigger debate going on in California between the candidates for governor. And it was all the looniest Democrats, minus Eric Swalwell, who we don't need to get into any of.
Maybe we'll get some video clips of the debate. He's taking time to spend more time with Snapchat. We don't need any clips of Swalwell. Yeah, all the clips of Swalwell are on Snapchat. They're not on Friendly Fire. But when Swalwell was still in the race, there was a very good shot that you could have had a Republican governor of California, just the way that the elections are conducted there.
I think this is a big reason why the Democrats sniped Swalwell on three different fronts, on residency, on financial corruption, and then eventually on a sex scandal. So Swalwell's out. One, does this improve the Democrats' chances? I think pretty obviously it does. But two, did anything happen at the debate last night that is going to affect the race?
Well, no, I mean, a Democrat's going to win. I mean, I don't mean to be a downer, but there's a reason we all left the state. I mean, California is beautiful and it is mismanaged. And, you know, I love Steve Hilton. He's great. And Chad Bianco is fine. He's great. I mean, but let's be real about this.
If they sneak through with 17% of the vote in a multi-candidate primary, and then they get through to a general election, and then Xavier Becerra versus Steve Hilton, I'm highly skeptical that the Republican ends up winning that general election race. And that seems like that's the most likely scenario right now. It was extraordinary to watch Democrats try to outbid each other in being insane.
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Chapter 7: What insights are gained from the California gubernatorial debate?
I was just doing a bit.
Klobuchar eating salad with a comb or something is totally fine and normal compared to that. Yes. The problem I have, Shapiro, is that every morning my wife asks me, do you think Steve Hilton can win in California? Do you think Spencer Pratt can win in California?
Yeah.
And I have to tell her no every morning. I say, no, they're not going to win. It's not going to happen. Hold on, Ben.
Before we get to your analysis of why the Republicans can't win, I just wonder what you made me think of when you say this is the first thing in the morning your wife turns to you. I hope that when she turns to you, you are lying in a beautiful, Helix mattress. That's what I do, except when I'm on the road, which is why I look haggard, because I have my beautiful Helix.
Helix uses a sleep quiz to match you to your perfect mattress. They've got great factors, everything. Sometimes you sleep a little too hot, maybe you want a little firmer, maybe you want a little softer. It is great. I am so into Helix, I have multiple Helix in my home. I am such a good father that I've gotten Helix for my kids. It's award-winning.
It's gotten great reviews from outlets like Forbes and Wired. Everybody at the Daily Wire absolutely loves it. And I am looking to get another one. That's right, yet another one. Because I keep having these kids. They ship directly to your door in the U.S.
with free shipping, 120-night sleep trial, a limited lifetime warranty, meaning you can test it risk-free, send it right back if it's not right for you. With Memorial Day coming up, which is the unofficial start of summer. Talk about the importance of good sleep for your whole family, especially since the kids are home from school and you've got all these things going on, okay?
This is the time, folks. Get your Helix. Go to helixsleep.com slash friendlyfire for 27% off site-wide. That is helixsleep.com slash friendlyfire, 27% off site-wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know that we sent you helixsleep.com slash friendlyfire. Megan rolls over in the morning, says, Ben, honey, please tell me.
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Chapter 8: What implications does the Ohio fraud scandal have for the midterms?
I'm Katie Porter, and I'm not like most people who run for governor. I actually get what you're going through. A single mom of three kids, I know what it's like to push the shopping cart. My minivan has almost 200,000 miles. I have a grown kid who may soon be living on my couch.
To give Californians what they need, it's going to take standing up to Donald Trump, calling out greedy corporations, and stepping on some toes along the way. Now, could you guys please get out of my shot?
I love the laugh track underneath. The laugh track is the best part. It's amazing. And also, I do love that all of our politicians, I remember a time when we used to, you know, be aspirational toward our politicians a little bit. And now every politician is like, I'm a loser just like you. Look at my crappy car. Look at my son who's a complete bum and here he is living on the couch.
I'm just like you. That's what I think of you. You're also a loser who has 200,000 miles on your minivan and a son who's probably going to crash out on your couch because he's a marijuana addict who majored in theater arts at CSUN. But like, yeah. So solid stuff there from Katie. I'm rooting hard for her.
She says, I'm a single mother. And you say, well, hold on. There's some people who are single mothers like the dad runs off or someone dies or something. But I'm a single mother because I poured scalding hot mashed potatoes on my husband and I physically abused him enough that he had actually a quasi moral case to separate from this lunatic.
Michael, don't cast aspersions at those of us who pour mashed potatoes on our loved ones. I'm personally offended by this. I found solidarity there. Don't yuck my yum. Stop that.
Is there an argument? Look, you've actually, Ben, you have persuaded me that Katie Porter outcome is certainly the funniest outcome and probably the best outcome in California. Assuming it's a Democrat, is there a Democrat who could take over who would be better than Newsom? My worry is, I'll put my cards on the table.
Every time you get a new Republican president, the Democrats who called the last guy Hitler come out and they say, you know, I actually really love George Bush. The good old days of George W. Bush, who I called Hitler until 30 seconds ago.
Which is going to be really hilarious when they do it to Trump. I don't want to be that.
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