Now, on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app, O'Connor and Company. 607, good morning. It's O'Connor and Company, this Friday, 27th day of February, live from your nation's capital. Coming up at 635, Victoria Cobb of the Family Foundation. Talk about maybe Sage's Law making a national showing, as we saw Sage, famously from the Commonwealth of Virginia, who had been encouraged to transition behind her mother's back. And then horrible things happened to that poor girl. The president now wants a national Sage's Law. Then at 8.05, Susan Friccio on the Hillary Clinton testimony yesterday about Jeffrey Epstein and today's Bill Clinton testimony. 835, we've got John Minidakis. He is the CEO of Jimmy's Famous Seafood, getting national recognition. I'm going to go get some Jimmy's Famous Seafood crab cakes this weekend, I think. Ooh, that sounds delicious. In our harbor and get those because they deserve our money for the way they've been engaging on social media, supporting the American hockey team. It's Larry O'Connor with Patrice on WUCA. Good morning, Patrice. Good morning. Happy Fri-yay, everybody. Oh, you and your Fri-yays. You won't stop till you get enough, will you? You know I won't. Okay, let's give an update on this horrific story. I don't know if you saw the latest Savannah Guthrie video that she put out. I think it was Tuesday morning or Monday evening. But it's harrowing to think of. You know, anybody who's, you know, I, my mom's in her 70s. My dad passed away last year. He was 87, almost 88. But the whole last decade, you know, once your parent reaches a certain age, and especially if they live far away from you, as my dad did, you're always worried about them. You're always worried because, you know, it's just obvious, right? You can't just pop down the street and check in on them. And thankfully, my dad had a relatively younger wife, about 15 years younger than him. So we knew that he was in good hands with my mom and it would be fine. Nancy Guthrie, Savannah Guthrie's mother, lived by herself in Arizona, 84 years old. And then you find out this horrific story that she was abducted. And there have been ransom requests, although I don't think it's ever really been verified that these ransom requests were legit. We don't know. The authorities haven't really laid it out there. But on Tuesday, this video that Savannah Guthrie put out said that the family is now offering a reward of up to a million dollars. And also a $500,000 donation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Now, this was weird because she was abducted on January 31st or February 1st, you know, overnight into February 1st. Why did it take three weeks? If the family had the means to offer a million-dollar reward, why wait three weeks for that? And one wonders if authorities suggested they not do that for some reason. Well, I have to speculate that, yes. I mean, as a family member, you want action as quickly as possible. So you would pay up right away whatever the demand was or as much as you could rather than this piecemeal. Because remember, Larry, this wasn't just, okay, we just jumped from $10,000 to a million. It was incremental increases every few days to me, which is like, OK, why are you squeezing out the money so so so sparingly? It's very strange. And I can only because I know if it were me, I would say, let's put a reward out there. Let's get our mom back. I think that either the local sheriff or the FBI said, no, we're the experts here. You shouldn't do that because listen to us. Well, maybe it's because they're going to get a lot of tips that end up just being crackpots looking for a million dollars. And so that sort of makes it hard to have this, you know, drinking out of a fire hose kind of tips. It's hard to find a real tip that's legit. And it's true. Since that Tuesday offer of a million dollars, they've gotten 1,600 tips in. But one of those tips may be the legit one, right? And you want to get that information. There is a new development with regard to a doorbell camera, a ring doorbell camera. So this is another house in that neighborhood. It's a back road near the neighborhood where Nancy Guthrie lived. Around the time, authorities believe she was abducted. The footage, Fox News Digital got an exclusive copy of the footage, shows 12 cars passing between midnight and 6 a.m. on February 1st. One vehicle was recorded at approximately 2.36 a.m., about eight minutes after Guthrie's pacemaker last synced with her iPhone. This is according to Pima County Sheriff Department's timeline. The homeowners live about two and a half miles from the Guthrie's home on a road that leads out of the neighborhood while avoiding major intersections. So the presumption is that if you're leaving that neighborhood, you've got to go down this road. And so the presumption is that that car caught at that moment could very well be the car that has Nancy Guthrie in it. And so that is a major development here in the case. But that's all we got so far. And it is what I am shocked at this point. They have been able to pick up DNA from the crime scene, but the DNA that they picked up has not matched anything in any of the FBI crime records or databases. So the presumption is if that DNA does in fact belong to Nancy Guthrie's abductors, they have not been found guilty or incriminated in any other cases or have ever done this sort of thing before where they have left DNA behind. Otherwise, there would have been a match of some sort. So one must presume that either they've never been caught before or this is the first time they've ever done such a thing. And if it is, it's pretty remarkable that they have done it in such a way where there is no trace whatsoever. And again, what's the endgame here? I mean, it signals to me either someone got very lucky, a first-timer, a novice got very lucky, or it's someone who is really good at what they do. with this ring door bell camera footage that was just released. I think the interesting part of this story is what the homeowners also said about the investigation. They told Fox News Digital law enforcement has not canvassed their street in weeks following the suspected home invasion. And so it sounds to me like maybe there is a did the law enforcement do a good enough job in canvassing? Why is it that this ring camera footage was just turned over now unless they had never been approached before by law enforcement? So it makes me wonder, you know, was the canvassing not wide enough in the neighborhood? And it's not like a D.C. neighborhood where you have about 50 people crammed onto one half block street. The houses are spread out. So you probably have to have a pretty wide area or perimeter that you're going door to door to see if anyone has any footage or any details. They heard anything strange, whatever the case may be. Listen, I'm not a police officer. I'm not an investigator. I'm just wearing a little bit of common sense that I think a lot of regular folks would, you know, are applying in this situation. And it just makes me wonder what could have been done earlier and what could have been done better and what could have been done differently that maybe would have led to a better outcome right now. Yeah. You know, and when we saw the perpetrator with that mask, the ski mask on the Google Nest camera on Mrs. Guthrie's home, I just sort of assumed, OK, that this should be enough to be able to sort of trace this down. We got a distinctive you know height We got the face We got the backpack We got the eyes with very distinctive eyebrows It like okay but then there been nothing There been nothing since then By the way yes it is reported now that Savannah Guthrie did want to offer the million dollars on day one But according to a friend close to the family, everyone involved in the investigation feared that it would result in a deluge of bogus tips. And so they were talked out of offering that million dollars. Now, here we are three weeks later and she is offering the million dollars. And finally, Fox News had a retired NYPD detective and a national security expert on, Pat Brosnan, looked at this video of this car coming down this road with his team and said that they believe the vehicle is a Kia Soul based on its slanted roof, the window design and the rear quarter glass and also the vertical brake lights. So that's the latest. That's what we've got. But at this point, three weeks later, Lord knows. Lord only knows. It's 615. Yesterday, Vice President J.D. Vance was joined by Mehmet Oz. Mehmet Oz, of course, is in charge of the Medicare and Social Security funds oversight there in the administration that oversees all of those funds from the federal government. They made a major announcement here having to do with Medicare funds, Medicaid funds, excuse me, Medicaid funds that have been funneling to Minnesota. Of course, Minnesota is sort of ground zero for huge amounts of fraudulent activity associated with Medicaid. And so after a thorough review, you'll remember that J.D. Vance, the vice president, was named on Tuesday as being part of a whole new anti-fraud division of the federal government. He's utilizing – Larry, how long has it taken the federal government, somebody to have the idea, to actually make it a whole-of-government priority to go after fraud? Hey, I've got an idea. Maybe somebody should be working with the Justice Department and HHS and all these other divisions to make sure there's no fraud going on. Oh, come on. Sit down. No one cares about that. Yeah. So J.D. Vance is in charge of that. And yesterday he and Mehmet Oz made this announcement. Let's start with cut 15, please. We're announcing today that we have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota. in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people's tax money. Now, what is this going to mean? What this means is that, first of all, the providers on the ground in Minnesota have actually already been paid. The state has paid those providers the money. What we're doing is we are stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that's being perpetrated against the American taxpayer. There are a few different ways that we're doing that. There are a few different affirmative actions that we're taking today. Dr. Oz is going to talk about those. But let me talk a little bit about the spirit of this and why we're doing it. And he does go on and talk about that. But again, this is this is just logical if you see all this going on. And obviously, by the way, let's just be clear. This has got to be two months after the first huge reports of the fraud that was uncovered in those Nick Shirley undercover videos, not uncovered in any way by 60 Minutes or 2020 or NBC News or anyone else. so for two months now the federal government has been interacting with the state department of human services there in minnesota to try to get a handle on it and i think the key words that you heard from jd vance is we're going to temporarily withhold these funds until we're convinced that the state of minnesota takes this fraud seriously one must presume that after these two months of interactions the federal government's conclusion is in fact minnesota is not taking this seriously despite the protestations of their governor, Tim Walz. You know, this is wonderful. I'm actually on the CMS website right now reading through their press release to see exactly what they're doing. They're not just halting the federal funds while they're investigating. They're also going to be bringing some transparency, Larry, to the table. They're going to be publishing a list of all of the providers and suppliers for Medicare programs, you know, things like prosthetics, you know, equipment, medical equipment. Some of these suppliers have turned this into a fraudulent hustle. And so those who have been exposed for the fraud, they're now going to be published online so that patients and payers, including private insurers, will know don't do business with these people because they are defrauding the federal government. I mean, what I see here is transparency, long-term change, not just going after bad guys right now, but creating a system so that if, God forbid, we have a Democratic president who doesn't care about fraud enforcement comes into play, you still have these processes where we're exposing, going after and exposing the fraudsters to put them out of business for good. Yeah. Let's go back to the vice president here, Cut 16, as he explains a little bit more about this Medicaid fraud that they believe is running rampant in the state of Minnesota. So number one, one of the examples of fraud that we've seen in Minnesota that we verify that is just awful is that a program that existed to ensure that autistic children had access to some after school services has made a number of people rich. not by providing services to needy children, but by allowing fraudsters to take money that ought by right go to American citizens and to American families and to set up sham businesses, set up sham clients, set up people who are not even autistic but claim to be autistic in order that they benefit from the money that's out there. Now, what does that mean? Number one, it means that a lot of people are getting rich off the generosity of American taxpayers. But more fundamentally and more importantly than that, it means that there are kids in Minnesota who deserve these services, who need these services, and they're not going to those kids. They're going to fraudsters in Minneapolis. That is unacceptable, and that's the sort of thing that we're cutting off with this action today. Let me make one final point about the spirit of this. You know, one of the things I love about our country is that we're a generous country. We're a generous people. We take care of our fellow citizens who can't afford medical care because they're down on their luck. We take care of people who can't afford to put food on the table even though they work hard and play by the rules. We recognize that we're all in this together. And part of the reason why we have Medicaid or part of the reason why we have food stamps, part of the reason why we have these programs is we want to make sure that kids who grew up in families, not all that different from the family that I grew up in, that they have access to the basic necessities, food, medical care, after school services when their family needs them, but they're unable to pay. 100 percent. That's the message that Republicans need to keep emphasizing. Yes. Yes. We want to go after the, as Trump called them, Somali pirates there who ransacked the fund. But but the focus certainly needs to be on the criminals, but also bring the focus back to these dollars were intended out of the goodness and kindness and generosity of the American taxpayer to help people who need it. In Minnesota, in 2018, when Tim Walls became governor, there was a little over $6 million of Medicaid autism program repayments. That has increased now to last year, $343 million in Medicaid repayments for autism programs. And you cannot tell me that that's all going to the children with autism and to the programs that need it. That money is going to fraud. And if you care about children, as Democrats claim they do, then you should be leading the charge to get rid of this fraud. You know, I hope that, you know, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. is also part of this conversation, particularly when it comes to autism, Larry. I mean I think we seen we been working kind of looking at autism and the growth in autism from a health perspective How did this happen I worry and maybe I far off base here but I hope I wrong but I hope that the increase in autism diagnoses has nothing to do with people just looking to cash in on a potential new way to defraud the government in support of programs like this. So, you know, there's lots of angles to going after the fraud and obviously the cost to taxpayers and to people who really these programs are intended for. And then there's the harm, the societal harm, where we're forcing on individuals like kids, maybe, I hope not, but maybe diagnoses that don't need to be there, but somebody is making money off of them. I hope that's not the case, but I'm hopeful. Maybe someone should be looking into that link as well. It is 625. Now on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app, O'Connor and Company. It's 37. It's Friday here in your nation's capital. Thanks for tuning in. Coming up at 8.05, Susan Ferriccio of The Washington Times on Hillary Clinton's testimony yesterday in the Jeffrey Epstein affair. 8.35 brings us John Minidakis from Jimmy's Famous Seafood. They've been declared American heroes in their social media campaign supporting our hockey team. It's Larry O'Connor with Patrice on WUCA. Morning, Patrice. Good morning. A lot of high points of the president's State of the Union speech. And as we mentioned earlier, the polls are in right now overwhelmingly in favor of the president's performance and more importantly, the policies and the agenda that he lays out. There was one moment where the president turned to the Democrats who refused to stand up for one of his statements. And he said, you people are crazy. You're crazy for not standing up for that. That's going to be the hook here. Selena Zito actually wrote this in a column yesterday saying the you people are crazy campaign is the thing Democrats should fear the most, that they go so far to the edge on certain issues that normal American people look and say, you're crazy. You're too extreme for me. What got lost in the mix, Patrice, is that comment to the Democrats about being crazy. It had to do with this statement from the president one minute before. Cut 20. Take a listen. In the gallery tonight are Sage Blair and her mother Michelle. In 2021, Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents. Hard to believe, isn't it? Before long, a confused Sage ran away from home after she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland a left-wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son. Sage was thrown into an all-boys-state home and suffered terribly for a long time. But today, all of that is behind them because Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full-ride scholarship to Liberty University. Sage and Michelle, please stand up. Now, listeners of this program, and of course Democrats would not stand up for that, listeners of this program are familiar with Sage's story because Sage's law was proposed in Richmond, Virginia, blocked by Democrats. But we had never seen Sage. This was a big moment and really emotional and remarkable. And hopefully Sage's law, though it was blocked by Democrats in Richmond, Virginia, will, in fact, become a national law, a federal law. Victoria Cobb is the president of the Family Foundation. They have been plugged in on this story for quite some time, and she joins us now. Victoria, thank you for that. I wanted to spend a little time setting this up to remind everybody where we are on the story and about Sage's story. Thank you for joining us. So tell me what the potential federal law would be here and whether it has a chance. Well, yeah, the goal here has been that a story like Sages never happens to anyone else again. And so the legislation, which we have really pushed at the state level, and unfortunately our legislature is so extreme right now that it didn't make progress again this year. And then, you know, folks are pushing this type of law at the federal level, is that we would never have a school transition a child, go along with, in a deceptive way, a child's gender confusion without the parent knowing. because that's the start of Sage's whole story that ended up resulting in human traffic. I mean, you know, sex traffic. I mean, it's just terrible. So if we can prevent this from the next Sage, why would we not do that? Well, and Victoria, that's the key here to prevent this from happening in other places. Talk to us about just the moment where Sage was in the there, having her story told and being acknowledged by President Trump. You know, can you tell us what Sage and her family has said about just being invited and being part of that moment, what it meant to them? Yeah, I think there's I mean, what I mean, is there a higher honor than having the president recognize that what you've been through should never happen again to anyone? And so they I mean, what an honor. And our law center was thrilled to be part of her story. You know, it was our attorneys that brought Sage back to her parents that had to fight the judge. You recall the president said in there basically because they didn't immediately acknowledge that their daughter was a son. They were not giving their child back. And so we had to fight to get Sage back to her parents. I mean, our justice system was part of the problem here. And so just to have an acknowledgment of this. And I think the reality is there are so many other children caught in gender confusion that need the care and love that their parents bring to the table. They need the school working with the parents to help kids restore their thinking about the sex that God has given them. And so for them, for Sage and for her mom, this was a truly beautiful moment. And I think it highlighted a really important issue. Amen. And, you know, Victoria, I think messaging around an issue like this is so important because it's very easy for the left, for Gavin Newsom, to say, listen, I want to love my neighbor. You know, Jesus compels us to love the stranger. I want to, you know, have some sympathy and empathy for everyone, you know, because these people are going through it. And I get that. Listen, that tugs the strings. It pushes buttons. But from the other side of the perspective, to me, this seems so simple, Victoria, that this law says something very, very simple and very logical, which is a teacher and a government employee at the school should not be able to keep secrets from a child's parent. That's the root of this, whether it has to do with gender, sexuality, or skipping school. If the kid skipped school without a notice from the parents, would the teacher keep that a secret from the parent? It defies logic. So is that how we win this discussion? By taking sort of the emotion out of it and just getting back to the basics, parents should know what's going on with their kids. Teachers shouldn't keep secrets. Well, the irony is that the younger grades we hear are the desperation of teachers for parents to get involved, show up at the teachers' conference, be a part of this, you know, what we're doing here. Then as they get older and issues get more complicated, what you hear is actually a push away from parents, especially at the General Assembly when you're talking about this or at the Congress when you're talking about this. If you hear adults trying to convince political bodies that a teacher cares more about a child than the parent who has birthed them and who will love them for the rest of their life, this teacher has maybe a year exposure to the student. I mean, if you're lucky, a couple of years of their entire life. But you have people who are truly trying to convince other people in the political sector that somehow they know best for this child, that they get this very short window into their lives in a very confused moment for that child. That parent has known them and loved them and will continue to know them and love them in nearly all cases. So we have got to get our priorities straight about how do we love people We speaking with Victoria Cobb president of the Family Foundation You know Sages Law was focused on Virginia here in our area but this is an issue that a nationwide issue. You know, we're seeing stories in California, for example, where I think the laws are so weighted heavily against parents and in support of schools affirming these transitions, these social transitions of students. Talk to us about why it's so important from a federal level that we, you know, and I think a lot of conservatives, we believe in federalism. States do what's best. But in this case, why we don't want to see it left up to the states. Well, parental rights is so fundamental. It cannot be abridged. It has to be at the level where we are saying it does not matter where you live. You are the parent. They are the child. And nothing needs to get in the way of that. And furthermore, we've got to get back to a basic understanding in our country that education is about reading, writing, and math, not about socially transitioning children. So we've got to set that bar high and set it across the country because somehow we've lost our way on what is it that people go to school to do and why are they in a home. And those are two very different reasons. And the idea that we can't get that straight in our schools in any state is wrong. And so parental rights is too big and just the function of education is too big. We've just had such a misdirected path in so many places regarding education and regarding who is truly ultimately the one who can best love and guide their children. And then this goes in many areas. This isn't just this issue, but that's why we've got to get to the point where we are making those statements in our laws across the country. They have to be something that applies everywhere because you do have crazy left wing legislatures like Virginia is where you might have a governor that claims she's moderate. They ran that way, but you do not have governance like that. She has not in any way actually indicated that she is going to be reasonable about things just like this. Yeah. Amen. Amen. Amen. Victoria Cobb. Thank you so much for your advocacy on this issue and for helping out Sage and her family there through this entire thing. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Victoria Cobb, Family Foundation, she said it so well. Or, as the president would say. Nobody stands up. These people are crazy, I'm telling you. 646. There's a brand new poll here that is disturbing, to say the least. And it has to do with Democrats' love for this country versus Republicans' love. Oh, hello. There you go. You mean the lack thereof. Versus Republicans' love for the country. And what's important here to note, well, let me just cut to the chase. At the moment, Democrats, when asked a very simple question, how proud are you to be an American? Extremely proud, very proud, moderately proud, only a little proud, and not at all proud. And then the polling firm, is this Gallup? I believe it's Gallup. They rated, based on how they answered, they assigned a number assignment to it. As of now, the pride level the Democrats have for the United States of America has reached a new low, 36 percent. Sheesh. 36 percent of Democrats have some level of pride in this country. The great majority of Democrats do not have pride in America. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, oh, well, you know, this is just because their guy didn't win or their gal in this case didn't win the White House. They're upset with Trump's policies. I'm sure the same thing was true when Obama or Biden was in the White House. And it is not the same. We are not at all the same. Now, let me be clear. There is slight fluctuation in Republicans proclaiming their pride in America, depending on who happens to be in the White House. But it is extremely slight. Going back to 2001, the number assigned to Republicans at that point in terms of pride in America registered at 90 percent. And by the way, Democrats in 2001, 87 percent. So very high. Very close. Very high. Yeah. Then at that point, right around 2008, it started to really dip. Well, toward the second Bush term, Democrats continued to go down. At one point in the first term of George W. Bush, the Republican number hit 99 percent. OK. Wow. Yeah. The lowest over the course of these last 25 years since 2001, the lowest point of pride that Republicans had in America was during the Biden administration. And it dropped down to eighty five percent. I'm trying to actually 82 percent, let's call it. So the lowest it has been in 25 years for Republicans pride in America was during that time. And it was 82 percent during the Biden years. It hovered around. I think the lowest it got was 90 percent pride in America. But for the most part, it was around 92 percent pride in America of Republicans who had pride in America. For Democrats, it has absolutely cratered now. And this is a disturbing development. we should not we should not base our pride in our country based on who happens to be in the White House. But I think, frankly, Patrice, this goes deeper than that. I think this has to do with liberal ideology and the perspective that one gets from academia and from our popular culture about America being the problem. And if you're raised in a family that reinforces that, you're going to get these numbers. Well, what's interesting, though, is, you know, when you look at the Democrats' plunging support that moved from the mid-80s right before even 2015, you saw a plunge of about 40 percentage points when President Donald Trump came down the escalator in 2015. And then it hit a low in 2020 of just about 40 points, and now it's back down again. So even Biden being elected gave a slight bump, but not enough of a bump to really recover where Democrats are. Oh, yeah. The highest it got under Biden for Democrats was 61 percent pride in America. Exactly. And then it plunged a year later because of inflation. So it's been interesting to see. Now, when you look at independence, independence have been on a downward trend. Independence started, you know, a little bit below both Republicans and Democrats in the early 2000s. And they're still there now at about 50 percent. And independents are interesting because it suggests to me that this is a longer term trend of pessimism across those who are not necessarily politically affiliated, either with Republicans or Democrats. They're just feeling, you know, kind of sour. And it's getting worse spanning both the Trump and the Biden recent administrations. And so, you know, I really think it gets to the messaging that different groups are getting, how they're feeling about their own unique situations and particularly financial situations. Yeah, maybe. I have another theory about that independence number, though. If you notice the trend over the last maybe five to ten years, there's been an influx of Republican voter registrations in certain states like Pennsylvania and Ohio and Florida and stuff. And those numbers have been skyrocketing. I think that there have been a lot of people who identified as independent politically who, because the Democrats have moved so far extreme to the left, they now can't even consider voting Democrat as an independent normally would. So a lot of those independents have become Republicans. Oh, interesting. And those independents who have not become Republicans basically see themselves aligned as Democrats. I think that's why you see the independence line trending with them. That's interesting. I can't prove it. I don't I mean, I'd love to see if there's a poll to actually figure out from those independents how they have really voted, because a lot of people love to claim that they're independent. But if they consistently vote one way and my guess is that those independents who basically follow this trend line with Democrats, though, not quite as extreme in their lack of pride for our country. My hunch is that in their heart, they're Democrats. It's 654.
