The Truth About Fraud: Congressman Grothman on Federal Programs and Accountability

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And I'm going to ask her this question because if race can't be used for college admissions, like the Supreme Court ruled a few years ago, and race can't be used to determine districts for house races, and race can't be used for farmers who qualify for disaster aid, these are all things that have gone through the courts and been verified, then one has to ask yourself, all the governments, local, state, and federal agencies that currently have race-based contracts and race-based grants, are they somehow also unlawful? President Trump promised to stamp out DEI. And that is one of the questions I wonder, which is, you know, there are small business lending programs that are specific to race. There are other programs and contracting programs and minority contracting programs. It would seem to me all of those are put under a microscope now that the court has been so clear about the role of race in government decisions. It can't be used. It can't be used unless there is a very clear and narrow harm that can be demonstrated for a specific client or case or court district. But it can't be used across the board and say, hey, we're just going to have a loan program for black entrepreneurs. I love black entrepreneurs. They're great. But the law is pretty clear now that, and where the court's going, we're going to be a race-blind society unless specific, unique harm to a particular party is evident, meaning current racism, not racism of the 50s and 60s or 30s and 40s or the Civil War racism, but it has to be shown in today's world. That is a very big and important moment. And so today, I'm going to introduce you to, well, not introduce you, we've talked to him many times, Congressman Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin. He's an important subcommittee chairman on the House Oversight Committee. He's doing a lot of great work on fraud. He's got a new bill that could take a real bite out of federal and state and local spending fraud that comes out of federal taxpayers' money. But I also want to ask him about something else he's pushing, and that is to get rid of race-based federal contracting. And Glenn Grothman will kick off our show with that. In the second block of the show, because things are a little uncertain where we're going to go with the Iran operation next, so today was a generally okay day, Victoria Coates, former Deputy National Security Advisor will weigh in on that and we'll get a good analysis of where things are. I think the real storyline, it isn't the one that you'll hear in CBS or ABC or the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, but I think even though Iran's acting out right now, there isn't a whole lot they can do. They fired a bunch of missiles at our Navy ships. They hit a single one. Not a single missile hit one of our Navy ships, even though they were fired upon. It kind of tells you something. They didn't fire at Israel because that's too far away. They only could fire at UAE. They only sent a few missiles. It could be that even though this is another instance of Iran acting out and acting bad, and I don't want to excuse their behavior at all, it may also be a sign that they're running out of time and running out of capability and that they're really just sort of haphazard in this. And maybe that President Trump's persistence in waiting for the oil wells to reach capacity where they have to be capped and the Iranian oil industry gets decimated. he's waiting for that moment. So Victoria Coates will help explain that. Now, late last week, I had a chance to talk to Mark Marano. He is one of the folks who really did a good job digging into the green economy scam. Now, again, I'm a big environmentalist. I love clean air, clean water. I love to hunt and fish. And I got a cabin out in the mountains. And it's very important to me. But I don't like scams. I don't like telling people, if you don't give a trillion dollars to solar now, you're all going to burn up in a couple of years. That was the scam that went on for a long time. And we spent trillions and trillions of dollars on things that have brought very little value back to the economy. By the way, nuclear energy and natural gas could have reduced carbon emissions worldwide far faster than the attack that Obama and Biden took. Well, Mark Mano spotted something really interesting last week. Old Al Gore, I covered him back in his 88 campaign. I mean, he was just coming of age. He was running for president, kind of was a second, third, fourth runner behind Michael Dukakis at the time. But he was already sounding his climate sort of agenda. Al Gore is now talking about, and I'm not making this up, not global warming, but a possible coming of an ice age. Yeah, you heard me right. Al Gore has flipped from global warming to ice age. Mark Marano will describe. It's a little more complicated than that, but he'll describe in the third block of the show. And then the final block of the show, as you know, I'd like to at least once or twice a week bring the issue of health in. We went out and got out a whole bunch of health partners that we vetted, we think are good quality people. They have lots of recommendations for doctors, people like Dr. Peter McCullough and folks like that. But 120 Life has been a part of my regimen now for about six months. I really love it because I suffer from high blood pressure. It's related to my kidney disease. Any benefit I can get to bringing my blood pressure down beyond what my blood pressure pills do is a benefit. But recently, medical experts and I think even the American Heart Association said, hey, it would be better if you get below the target of 120 over 80. We always thought 120, 80 is all you get. Get the 120 over 80. Your blood pressure is great. Now we're being told for some people and many people getting it below that might even be more beneficial. 120 life has been – I tried it. It really worked for me. I literally brought my bottom number down, which has been my problematic number in my life, down six, seven, I think maybe eight points now. I originally started with the bottle juices, now I'm moving to the powder. But I love what they do. It's completely natural. It's all completely science-based. Lots of doctors are endorsing it. I just want you to hear the latest because May is Blood Pressure Awareness Month. And a lot of people don't know they have it. I want to raise that profile for you. Just go get it checked once. Make sure you're okay. Read up for just 10 minutes because you don't want to wake up 6 or 10 or 12 years from now and say, I had heart damage and no one told me that blood pressure would do that. I had a stroke and I didn't know I was wearing out my arteries and veins. So 120 Life will give us a few minutes to talk about health at the back end of the show today. So that's our show. Congressman Glenn Grothman, Victoria Coates, the former Deputy National Security Advisor, Mark Marano, who always makes me laugh. He's such an energetic, fun guy. And 120 Life, which is one of our great partners here on the health side of our company. That's our show today. Now, before we get to a quick commercial break, I want to shout out my good friends at Wired to Fish Coffee. They're back selling their great coffee. It's my favorite. I get a monthly package, a big two-pound bag now. I also bought some from my neighbors because they love it. And so I surprised them the other day in spring and said, here's some coffee. One of the things I like about Wired to Fish is it is unbelievable. It's better tasting. My go-to coffee for over 35 years was Dunkin' Donuts. I just love it. I love that Arabica blend. Wired to Fish outdid Dunkin' Donuts. It's just better. 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He represents the great people of Wisconsin where I spent many years. He is Congressman Glenn Grothman. Congressman, welcome back to the show. Glad to be on the show. And you're right. This is a huge story. Yeah. Go ahead. No, you've been tackling this. It's a huge story. And one thing your listeners ought to take out of it is the government can't do anything right, particularly the federal government. So when we are presented with a program, whether to extend it or not, whether to add a new program, remember, it's going to be screwed up. And it's particularly going to be screwed up if you have the federal government writing the check, but the states administering the program. Because if the states are administering the program, they have no incentive to make sure there's no cheating going on. Now, I'll grant you the Democrat states, because they don't just plain don't care. The more money they push out the door, the better. The the Democrat states are in much worse shape, Minnesota, California, New York. But it really means we, first of all, should have the state paying for part of these programs. And secondly, not only should the states be paying for a part, but it does mean the federal government can never be picking up 100% again. Yeah, got to get the states some skin in the game so they feel the pain when they waste the money. Now, you have the Federal Fraud Prevention Workforce Training Act that got through OHS oversight last week. A lot of people high on this bill thinking it's one of the solutions we need. Tell us what it would do. Well, it's going to monitor more how the states are dealing with things. It's going to force them to use metrics that will identify this fraud earlier. And hopefully, as it's identified earlier, we're going to be able to recover some of these funds and know if there's widespread cheating going on and put some of these people in prison. Matt, what a good idea. Sir, there are a lot of people who assert the notion that it mainly happens with Democrats because Democrats, they frankly benefit from this, whether it's through lobbying, whether it's from the votes. It also happens on the Republican side. But this is why we can't have nice things, because entitlement programs in particular are rife with this type of fraud. Is Congress committed to rooting out all these different types of fraud? I mean, heck, even the stuff that Brooke Rollins mentioned last week about SNAP benefiters having Porsches and Bugattis. Right. I hope Congress does all they can. Obviously, a lot of this is going to be up to the attorney general, but I'm sure we're going to have more committee hearings on it. I'm sure Jamie Comer, the oversight committee that I'm part of, are going to have more hearings on this. And hopefully more hearings do wind up in some federal prosecutions. It's a horrible embarrassment. And like I said, the number one thing they ought to do is make sure the states have some skin in the game. Otherwise, this is going to come back again and again. I can tell you when we negotiate with the Democrats, the Democrats are not for fighting fraud. They have to say, Republicans, what are you going to give up if we're going to start fighting fraud? You would figure every congressman would say, regardless of how generous these programs are, and they're usually overly generous, at least people would stick to the current rules. But that's not true. And it's something for people to remember at election time. Yeah, it is. It's going to be a big issue in the election, I think. Sir, the Farm Bill was a big win for farmers. A lot of big ideas here that are going to keep America's ag industry rolling strong. One place that didn't get as much attention is SNAP benefits. There's some great experiments going on. I think Florida is one of them right now. Tell us a little bit about what you're trying to do to make sure that we get a better handle on how SNAP money, food stamps, is spent. Well, you're 100% right. The Farm Bill is really more about food stamps than it is about farm. And some of us were hoping, given the over generosity of the program, the cheating in the program, that we'd begin to make a dent in what you can buy with food stamps. Your local food banks and some forward looking states already say no sugary drinks, no Mountain Dew, you know, no Coca-Cola. Unfortunately, the amendment was brought to the floor. It was a rare thing was brought to the floor. I really thought there was a chance it was going to pass. 29 Democrats voted to restrict sugary drinks and food stamps. You would figure it would pass with 29 Democrats. But to my disappointment, 55 Republicans voted to keep the sugary drinks on food stamps. When I get around my district, when I'm talking to gals behind the counter, they unanimously say no sugary drinks, no Mountain Dew on food stamps. But unfortunately, Only 55 Republicans didn't go along, and we're going to keep the gravy train coming. I'll point out that over time, we right now have almost, not quite, but almost twice as many people on food stamps as we did 25, 30 years ago. So, you know, and the economy is booming. There are jobs everywhere. So what does that tell you? We're having people on food stamps who don't have to be on there. One way to make it less generous is to restrict what you buy with it. Congressman from Florida, Congressman Self, good buddy of mine, introduced a bill. I was all in there with him. We really thought we had a shot at restricting what you can buy at food stamps, but no. Part of it was people have maybe a Pepsi-Cola, a bottler in their district, but in any event, people frequently asked, does anybody say, why are you buying this junk with the food stamps? Well, now we have a vote on the topic and very disappointing. Yeah. Congressman, I know why Democrats would vote against this, because if it's a Trump idea or anyone in his administration's idea, they're going to vote against it. Why would Republicans vote against taking sugary drinks off of food stamps? It makes America healthier. And by the way, it also benefits farmers, because if they're not buying sugary drinks and junk food, then they're probably going to be spending more on produce. Absolutely, Amanda. You ought to be they ought to be buying cheese. They ought to be buying milk. They ought to be buying apples and potatoes. Absolutely. I think maybe some people, if you have a Pepsi Cola bottler in your district, you may say, I'm afraid it'll cost them a couple of jobs. I think I heard that as an excuse. But still, you're right. Congressman, I want to jump in on one other thing you've been working on, reverse discrimination in federal contracting. You just put some legislation out there to stop it. if we can't use race to determine gerrymandered districts and we can't use race to determine school entry, should we use race for contracts? I think you feel pretty strong that we shouldn't. Tell us about your legislation. Absolutely. And let me tell you a story that hasn't been out there. I have had people, three different people who would know in my district, who talk about the federal government overpaying on products, overpaying on services, a 30 percent bonus, not unusual, on subcontracting for the right race or the right gender. And that's got to end. President Trump is doing what he can. But I'll tell you, these DEI people are going to be back in a heartbeat if a Democrat ever takes over the presidency. Right now, these rules are in statute. President Trump is thankfully ignoring the statute. I would say he's doing the constitutional thing. But we want to make this a permanent thing where we don't go back to the days in which rather than saying, who does the job best? Who does the job at the lowest better? You know, right now we're well in the old days. We were overpaying. I'm told by people who would know 25. I'm hard to believe that 30 percent. I've been told, overpaying for if the right person owns the business. Wow. Unbelievable. Before we let you go, I know because of... It's an exclusive for you. Nobody talks about that. They should talk about it. Fantastic. Absolutely. Sir, on Capitol Hill, I'm sure that there's not much that surprises you anymore. You've probably heard a lot of it, but I know that you were particularly shocked to hear a student, a witness, talk about how he had to suppress his political beliefs out of revenge from professors. How on earth have we wound up here in this country where independent ideas, maybe outside of the box ideas, maybe different from your classmate ideas, are not celebrated and used to bring about debate? Common, common. And the Democrats express a surprise like I was making it up. You go into any college Republican meeting and you will find stories of students who cannot tell the truth on their essays, cannot tell the truth on their final exams, because if they say what's in the heart, they will get a bad grade. They know they have to lie and make things up to get a decent grade in those topics in which an essay determines your grade, political science, journalism, that sort of thing. Students just have to lie to get the A. They'll tell it to you all the time. Hey, folks, she was Donald Trump's deputy national security advisor. I think she's one of the wisest and most prescient security experts out there. Victoria Coates up next right after these messages. Of course, we'll be talking about Iran and Europe a lot right after this. Hey, America, you may not know this, but May is high Blood Pressure Awareness Month, but awareness without action doesn't change anything. Half of all adults, myself included, have high blood pressure. Many don't know it. Many aren't doing anything about it. The people who actually benefit from this month, they're the ones who check their numbers and do something about them. Try 120 Life. 120 Life is a once a day functional drink made with ingredients that help support healthy blood pressure It tastes great It refreshing And it made from a blend of super fruit juices It fits into real life and the powdered version has just one gram of sugar making it a smart option for people who are trying to watch their blood sugar Now, try it for 14 days, measure before and after. If your numbers don't improve, you get a full refund. Over 1,000 health professionals have supported or endorsed its use. 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So is Iran running out of options? Joining us now to react is Vice President of the Heritage Foundation's Catherine and Shelby Collum Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy and former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump, Victoria Coates, returning to the show. Victoria, great to see you. Good to see you guys too. You know, President Trump reiterated this morning and it has been ramping up to this point, but at this point it definitely seems like Iran has run out of options militarily, strategically speaking. what leg are they standing on at this point that they can fight with? Because even the issue with the Strait of Hormuz, I mean, they're in a pretty weakened state as well. This is all sort of coming down to, I believe, the final days here. So we've got an issue. Iran is obviously still trying to lash out. But the farthest they can get their missiles at this point is UAE. They're looking for proximate targets. They're not even trying to shell Israel anymore. And my friends in Israel tell me things are pretty much back to normal. Flights are coming in and out. And so they're trying to make trouble for UAE. But this is just a terrible strategic blunder, Amanda, because, I mean, UAE is where they did a lot of their financing historically through Dubai. They had some illicit financing rings. And I think UAE is now cracking down on these, cutting them off from any more hard currency. So really stupid decision on their part. And furthermore, today we saw two U.S. flagged vessels. And then in the last hour, There's a report Merckx, the shipping giant, got a vessel through. If they can't do anything to stop folks from going through the strait, we're just going to see an exodus of ships. And, yes, they did strike that one South Korean ship, but their ability to strike others may be very limited. Then they're really out of cards. So does this mean Iran realizes it must make a deal or do we add some incentive to try to get them to make a deal? Well, I think we're going to continue to add incentives. And this is where Operation Economic Theory is so important, John, that this is the second front of this war is economic. It is just complete systematic dismantlement of the Iranian economy. And they have days, not weeks, left in terms of, say, their oil storage. That's 90% of their economy. They're about to lose that. Their currency has lost 98% of its value over the last 10 years. They're about to hit 2 million rial per dollar. 10 years ago, that was 30,000. There's no value left in this economy. And so they haven't had a stock market for two months. What happens when they turn that back on? What happens when they try to restore Internet access? They can't recover without it. So the destruction that's been done, we really don't even fully understand yet. But the reality is Iran will not exist the way it did before Operation Epic Fury. And they have to realize they can't recover without U.S. sanctions relief. Victoria, as this conflict was ramping up, I guess last July, I think there were a lot of folks who were worried about its effect on the Abraham Accords, just because instability in that region, if those agreements and if those Accords were not rock solid, then it could, you know, reveal the fragility of them. What has been the effect in the aftermath, or I guess as this is still ongoing, because it seems to me that it didn't, it didn't create or reveal vulnerabilities. If anything, it revealed how strong they were. No, what we've heard historically is conventional wisdom tells us if Israel or the United States take military action against Iran, the Arab world will turn on us and they will be isolated. We will be isolated rather. And completely the opposite has been the effect. We have reports that UAE has hosted Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system. This would be the first time that that had happened for an Arab country and even IDF soldiers to man it to help them. So Israel is participating in the defense of UAE. And rather than pushing the United States away, we even see Qatar starting this historic natural gas relationship with Golden Pass in Texas. So they're making up for the lack of natural gas that they're not able to take out of their field after Iran shelled it by the production from the United States. And Saudi Arabia similarly pulling closer and closer to the United States, now importing American natural gas into Saudi Arabia. This is historic. So rather than isolation, I think we're going to see the accords expand. This is great for the region and great for Israel. I want to ask a little bit about another thunderclap we heard in the Middle East last week, UAE pulling out from OPEC. I wonder if Iran picked the target today because they were a little upset about that. But how important a moment is it and what could it mean for realigning the oil industry globally? It's critically important. And I mean, it's been important to also realize UAE has been disproportionately singled out by Iran from the beginning of the war. So I don't know that what happened today is a response to the OPEC decision. But clearly, Iran sees UAE as their single biggest threat in the Gulf. And so UAE pulling out of OPEC, they joined in 1967. They're the third largest producer, you know, a real oil heavyweight. And what this means is that OPEC can't control their production anymore. They've been held to about 2.8 million barrels a day up until now. Now they want to go to five. And the reason they couldn't do that before is to get to five million barrels, you need to invest in your infrastructure to support that production. And if OPEC was going to keep their heavy hand on them, they couldn't do that. So now the UAE is liberated and they can work with partners like the United States. and we can coordinate with them much more fulsomely than we could have before. And I think we should look for lots of other countries to start thinking that being in the club with the Iranians and Russias isn't a great idea. Victoria, speaking of partners, I know President Trump, obviously his eye is on the central conflict, but he's also watching other nations to see how they react and respond and if they are helping us. and talks of 5,000 troops being pulled from Germany. Obviously, President Trump feuding a little with that chancellor. What message does it send to Germany? Not that they really had that much to offer in the way of assistance in the first place, but I think that it would have been a moral win for them to at least express support, right? No, absolutely. And this was a historic missed opportunity for our European NATO allies, who at the beginning of this conflict should have said, if they weren't going to participate, you know, this isn't a European fight. Fair enough. But so what we're going to concentrate on is Europe. We're going to take the burden off of you, the United States. We're going to stop asking for assistance with Ukraine. We're going to get after that problem and solve that war that's been raging on European soil for more than five years. And that's where we're going to focus. You guys do what you need to do. They didn't do that. They've been extremely unhelpful. And they've blocked flights. They've not allowed us access to the bases that we've built. It's outrageous. And so, you know, I've been very clear with all of our European interlocutors who keep coming to us, asking us at the Heritage Foundation to help them that you guys can help yourself. You go to Ankara, you go to the NATO summit next month with the receipts for those five percent pledges that you made last year at the NATO summit. You say to President Trump, who's just pledged a one point five trillion dollar military budget. We are also stepping up to the plate. We are also investing and we're not going to ask for a free ride from the Americans anymore. And so that is the one way to salvage the NATO relationships. And it's entirely in the hands of Europe. Yeah. President Trump clearly got Europe's attention. Georgia Maloney saying, I don't want him to take U.S. troops from Italy. Do you think that Europe is starting to rethink the way it played the last six months? Well, they better. I mean, because, of course, it would be a disaster for Bologna if we withdrew the Sixth Fleet. She should have thought of that before she restricted her airspace. And I understand that because of the disastrous energy decisions Europe has made under the guidance of the EU, that their prices are going up exponentially more than even ours are here in the United States because they're so energy vulnerable. That's their own faults. They've got to get out of that problem. Germany should restart their nuclear plants, for example, if they don't like these high prices. And they should import more natural gas from the United States. All this can happen. But the idea that they're going to rely their economies on deployments of U.S. troops, that's not what our military does. We're not there to support socialist European welfare states. We are there to defend the national security interests of the United States. And if somebody like Chancellor Mertz of Germany wants to say that the United States is being humiliated by the Iranians in front of a live audience, then he's going to take some penalties for that. And that apparently is going to come in the form of 5000 of those American troops. All right. He makes me laugh. He makes me smile. He challenges the green energy scam, not environmentalism in general. He's very good on that. But Mark Marano, editor of Climate Depot, up next to talking about Al Gore's flip flop, or if it is that, to Ice Age after years of global warming warnings. I don't know. You're going to want to check it out next right after these messages. That movie that I mentioned the day after about the Gulf Stream shutting down. Well, this morning in one of the English newspapers is a whole big article summarizing the recent dire warnings of the scientists who found yet more confirmatory information that this is a very real threat within the next 25 years. If that happens and the Gulf Stream ceases to exist as we know it, we're in an ice age in like 10 years. No, no, no. It would take long. I mean, I'm not the expert. Just go with me. I wear makeup, Al. version, but I've spent a lot of time with him. But it would be bad. It would be very bad, and it would be bad on a scale that is beyond anything we can compare it to. I'll tell you what would be bad, taking Al Gore seriously on any of this stuff. Remember, it was about 20 years ago, 25 years ago, an inconvenient truth, right? The world was going to burn to death. We were going to have global warming. That would be catastrophic. His predictions never came true, and now he's singing a different tune. If that sounds familiar our next guest has been warning us about this for a long time He the Climate Depot publisher former senior staff at the U Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and one of our great friends Mark Marano Mark welcome back Thank you John Happy to be here Yeah I love how the word if was used so many times in that little soundbite. If an asteroid hits the earth or the sun blows up, we're all dead. Anything could be under the category of if. It's absolutely insane. All the ifs we've been put through the last 25 years. This was a good week, I thought, for people who want a more rational look at the environment. I thought what Lee Zeldin did in Congress and taking on some of the people and calling out their bunk and then Al Gore having to endure this. We're now headed to global freezing after global warming. Do you think most Americans are beginning to adapt? They're thinking they might have bought into the inconvenient truth. But it seems like people are adjusting back to we were taken for a ride. Yeah. Harry Enten, the sort of the the excitable CNN pollster last fall did an analysis showing all the data going back to the 1980s, 1989 or 88. And he said that essentially there's not much more concern about climate change, global warming than there was in the 80s. and this was a shocking development because all of the decades of fear, the movies, the pop culture, the education, the media, and you still can't move the needle. Now, the Democrats, of course, the activist base, they're the ones who are most concerned, but in terms of, you know, people say, do you believe in global warming? Is the earth warming? And someone say, yeah, it's warming. That's not really, we've been coming out of a little ice age in 1850. They'll say, oh, people believe in global warming. No, it's how much are you afraid of it? How much does it concern you? And that hasn't changed now. We're still at levels that we haven't seen that we saw in the 1980s. So I think in a real way, COVID killed the climate monster because Anthony Fauci deserves, John, the greatest award for his activism and saying and declaring he is the science. Because even the middle now and a lot of the Democrats had to admit, you know, you can no longer do appeals to authority. It's dead to people. You can no longer say, are you a scientist? This NASA says this. What do you know? People are just like, oh, yeah, that's like saying we have to take the vaccine or lockdowns are good or masks or kids need to miss school. An appeal to authority was killed with COVID. And I think the only benefit of the whole COVID mess we went through was the fact that it killed the climate hoax. Yeah, it made us much more distrusting of science overall. There's no doubt about it. All right. I would say that while public sentiment really hasn't changed that much over the last 30 years, our wallets did because trillions of dollars have been drained out of them to do things like solar energy and wind, which have not really made any difference in our energy portfolio. In fact, without natural gas, we wouldn't have had much carbon reduction, which we have achieved through natural gas, and we would have no supply. We look a lot more like Europe. Do you think that we have a moment of reckoning about that lost money? Because it's just such an enormous amount of money that went to something that made no difference. Yeah, globally, I think it was Bjorn Lomborg, the Danish economist, estimated something like $12 to $14 trillion since the 90s. That's what it did. I've just been blown, you know, trying to, even if Al Gore was right, just the clip you showed, you know, if that scheme shuts down. So what, we're going to tax ourselves to change the jet stream? And what is he even talking about? Like, how is a tax or carbon trading or the Green New Deal or a UN agreement going to alter the atmosphere of the jet stream or whatever the bleep he's talking about this week? And so, you know, if you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, there was estimated $1.2 trillion. And the Trump administration has done yeoman's work trying to get that money back. Estimates are $500, $600 million they got back. Once the money is sent and once it's collected in the banks and the contracts, it's very hard to get that money back. So to answer your question in short order, there is about zero chance we're ever going to get a refund of the trillions of dollars that were sunk into the climate hoax trying to change the weather and climate through taxes and regulations. I don't see how. In fact, I'll go a step further, John, and say that spending money in Washington is not controversial under both parties. and I just don't see them ever being in accounting to get that money back. In fact, our biggest threat is the next thing that they try to get us to blow money on that we have to prevent. And that's just the way Washington works, sadly. All right, folks, one more thought before we end the day. 120 Life, great super fruit drink. I use it. It brings blood pressure down. Also just good for your body. It has a lot of great ingredients in it. We'll tackle that before we finish the day. But first, a quick commercial message. Welcome back, everybody. May is High Blood Pressure Awareness Month, but awareness without action doesn't change anything at all. Half of all adults have high blood pressure, and many don't even realize that they have the condition. So joining us to discuss this and more is co-founder of 120 Life, Susan Schachter. Susan, great to see you. Thanks so much for being with us. So great seeing you. Great to see you, Amanda and John. Yeah, it is a very important thing. And, you know, you said like half of all Americans have it. And at that number, one in five don't know they have it. And at this point, people ages 18 to 39, the amount of those, the people in that population who have high blood pressure has gone up by 20%. Wow. Goodness gracious. So if it's somebody out there who has high blood pressure, but they don't know it, should people pay attention to symptoms? What can they look for? Well, here's the thing. It very often goes without symptoms. That's why one of our things that we always say is know your numbers, right? We say, you know your birthday, you know how tall you are, you know your social security number, know your phone number, know your blood pressure numbers. and they you know you can have a machine at home of course at the doctor's office they have them in malls where you can get to take in in many pharmacies they have it you know for free they'll just take your blood pressure it's important to know it because you can be symptomless in terms of outward symptoms but there are so many bad things it can do to your body i mean it it can contribute to dementia it can contribute to kidney function it can contribute to sexual dysfunction particularly in men. Obviously, it can contribute to cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke. It's, you know, it's just, it's a silent killer. So you want to know what your numbers are, so that you can take an active part in saving your own life. Yeah, that's an important thing. But like you said, it's the silent killer. A lot of people don't know about it until their body's damaged. In the last year, there's been some new guidance. 120 over 80 was always the perfect blood pressure that we all aim for. But now you're suggesting that many people consider going down below 120 on your top number. So the science is changing and everybody's looking for a way to get that blood pressure just a little bit lower. Tell us a little bit about how 120 Life is so effective. Yes. So 120 Life, I like to say it's made from nature's pharmacy. and it is just all real things and it contains it literally contains hibiscus, cranberry, beets, pomegranate, tart, cherry, magnesium, hawthorn berry and grapeseed extract and those ingredients the majority of them all of them are good for you and anti-inflammatory But the majority of those ingredients work by the same or similar mechanism to different high blood pressure medications. So when you're putting them all together, it has a bigger impact. And, you know, obviously, it's also good for exercise and things like that, too. Obviously, if you have low blood pressure, you don't want to take it. But it tastes good. It tastes good. I was I had done some TV segments and one of the hosts on one of the shows said that she thinks it tastes like sweet tarts. So, yeah, it's really nice. The powder one, the drink one is more beat forward in flavor. So some people don't like meats, don't like it as much. But also it's a medicine. You know, it's like it's a medicine that has good side effects. There are no bad side effects. And I love that it's natural. And there are some people out there who would say, well, why don't you just eat these things? But in order to get this concentration and it's hard to find things like hibiscus, especially year round, it would be hard to pack it all into one pill. But there's also a perfect balance with these ingredients, isn't there? There's a perfect balance and it would be very expensive and time consuming to take all of these ingredients in the amounts that you need and get them together and something you do every day. So this is very convenient. And and, you know, as I said, the one in the bottle is a little more beat forward in taste. The powder is not powder. I think it's really delicious. I don't have high blood pressure, but when I'm stressed out, I'll tell you the truth. Maybe this is TMI. I actually had a doctor's appointment this morning and I was nervous because I've been so stressed about a bunch of things. So I was nervous about it and I took it just in case I told him I took it and everything. My blood pressure was 105 over 68. So that's amazing. Yeah. So and, you know, our story is so wonderful with my friend Ira, who I grew up with. Yeah. We grew up around the corner from each other. And he lives in Chicago. We grew up in Brooklyn. I live in New Jersey. He lives in Chicago. But his blood pressure was so, so high that his cardiologist told him it was urgent. He gets it down within three weeks or he was going to need open heart surgery because there was another medical thing. he went back and looked things up you know and it's the natural things and got in touch with me we went back and forth over the phone for optimal taste and efficiency based on scientific studies five days of him taking this concoction we came up with his blood pressure came down 30 to 40 points he didn't need the surgery his cardiologist is on our board and we've also had the endorsement of over 2000 health professionals. So amazing. And these ingredients have lots of other benefits, right? The antioxidants. So there's you're doing your body well, your liver, other other parts of your body are going to do well as well when you take this. Absolutely. And thank you for bringing that up, John. It actually it also it lowers one of the ingredients lowers something in our body called C-reactive protein that is a cardiac inflammatory marker. There are things that are anti-carcinogenic in it. You know, it's anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic. As I say, there are good side effects. There are no bad side effects. All right, folks, that wraps up our Tuesday edition of John Solomon Reports. A big thank you to Congressman Glenn Grothman, former Deputy National Security Advisor, Victoria Coates, Climate Depot's Mark Depot, and my good friends at 120 Life. I love those guys, and I love the product, and I encourage everybody to check it out. It's great. It works. It tastes great. I even got some recipes I'm making with soda and other things. I mix them together. It's just really great. Go check them out today. Back tomorrow with Harmeet, Dylan, and Sean Spicer. Great show tomorrow. Be sure to tune in. Until then, God bless you, and God bless this extraordinary country of the United States, as he always has. You've been listening to John Solomon Reports, the podcast from Just the News.