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Trump Crackdown on 'Ghost Student' Fraud Saves Taxpayers $200 Million · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch. Grab a stool next
0:05
Speaker 1: to Greg Karambas of Radio America and Jim Garrity of
0:08
Speaker 1: National Review. Three martinis coming up.
0:13
Speaker 2: So glad you're with us for the Friday edition of
0:15
Speaker 2: the Three Martini Lunch. Yes, there are more attack ads
0:18
Speaker 2: coming at the end of this show, but Jim, we
0:20
Speaker 2: start with another story that you and I probably wouldn't
0:23
Speaker 2: normally touch with a 10-foot pole, except that politicians have
0:26
Speaker 2: injected themselves into this story. Same thing happened with the
0:30
Speaker 2: Lindsay Clancy case, and now it's happening with the so-called
0:33
Speaker 2: Cornell 7. This case has kind of burst onto the scene.
0:37
Speaker 2: Because a woman known only as Jane Doe has filed
0:41
Speaker 2: a major civil lawsuit against Cornell University and possibly against
0:46
Speaker 2: those she accuses of raping her back in 2024 in
0:48
Speaker 2: the fall. By the way, as you can probably tell,
0:52
Speaker 2: this is going to get into some details that might
0:55
Speaker 2: not be appropriate for little ears. So if you're in
0:57
Speaker 2: that situation, you might want to hit pause and come
0:58
Speaker 2: back to it just a little while later. But this
1:01
Speaker 2: incident happened, this potential crime happened at the Chi Phi
1:05
Speaker 2: Fraternity House at Cornell October 2024. The only thing we
1:08
Speaker 2: know for sure is that there was sex, there was
1:10
Speaker 2: considerable drinking, there was drug use, ketamine to be precise.
1:15
Speaker 2: And so when it comes to the original story, there
1:19
Speaker 2: were multiple statements given by this alleged victim. One was
1:22
Speaker 2: that it was consensual, so there was no crime. And
1:25
Speaker 2: then not that long after that, there was a statement
1:26
Speaker 2: that there was a crime here and that.
1:28
Speaker 1: There was a rape.
1:29
Speaker 2: So you also have the Cornell student newspaper, The Daily Sun,
1:34
Speaker 2: on September 21st, publicly naming the seven accused fraternity members.
1:38
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, it won't be the local prosecutor doing this.
1:40
Speaker 2: Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, has decided that
1:42
Speaker 2: Attorney General Tish James is is going to head up
1:45
Speaker 2: the effort to decide whether to bring charges in this
1:49
Speaker 2: particular case. But other political figures are coming forward on
1:52
Speaker 2: this as well, which is just kind of odd that
1:56
Speaker 2: we've got three or four different people stepping forward and
1:59
Speaker 2: talking about this right away kind of at the same time,
2:02
Speaker 2: starting with AOC, who seems to be struggling a little
2:06
Speaker 2: bit with the facts.
2:07
Speaker 3: Seven men drugged and gang-raped... A 20-year-old woman. They lured
2:16
Speaker 3: her in to a fraternity house. They drugged her with ketamine.
2:21
Speaker 3: They then posted to a group chat that she was incapacitated.
2:26
Speaker 3: And seven men took turns gang raping her for seven hours.
2:32
Speaker 2: Well, whatever happened here, Jim, it's possibly criminal. It's certainly
2:35
Speaker 2: deeply immoral on a number of different levels, considering some
2:38
Speaker 2: of the facts in this case. But AOC, according to
2:41
Speaker 2: Katie Pavlich over at News Nation, says that she's just
2:44
Speaker 2: saying things that aren't even in any of the complaints.
2:47
Speaker 2: And so she's not being very clear on the facts.
2:50
Speaker 2: Also weighing in on this for some reason, Abdul El-Sayed,
2:53
Speaker 2: who started his tweet on this yesterday, saying a young
2:56
Speaker 2: woman bravely reported that she was sexually assaulted in 2024
2:58
Speaker 2: by seven men at their fraternity. But instead of protecting her,
3:01
Speaker 2: Cornell University protected her abusers, letting them off with a
3:04
Speaker 2: slap on the wrist. It's outrageous and a failure of
3:07
Speaker 2: both the institution and and a societal norm that consistently
3:10
Speaker 2: makes light of sexual assault. And so, Jim, what do
3:14
Speaker 2: you make of this, I guess, more politically than anything else?
3:17
Speaker 2: How is this story now emerging and becoming a part
3:21
Speaker 2: of the democratic narrative?
3:22
Speaker 4: Well, Greg, first I would begin by recommending everyone read
3:25
Speaker 4: my colleague Dan McLaughlin's piece, The Moral Wilderness of the
3:29
Speaker 4: Cornell 7 Case. Dan does a very thorough and very
3:33
Speaker 4: careful job of going through everything that we know, everything
3:36
Speaker 4: that we don't know, everything that is disputed in a
3:39
Speaker 4: very even-handed manner. And I think this is both what
3:43
Speaker 4: the law and morality call for in this situation. And
3:47
Speaker 4: we should point out that just because a crime of
3:50
Speaker 4: rape cannot be proven in a court of law, which
3:52
Speaker 4: by the way, if you're a prosecutor and you don't
3:55
Speaker 4: think you can, you know, convince a jury, you're not
3:58
Speaker 4: supposed to go get an indictment anyway and hope that
4:01
Speaker 4: you can ruin the reputation of the person. You know,
4:04
Speaker 4: You're supposed to try these things at a court of law,
4:05
Speaker 4: not in the court of public opinion. But with that said,
4:09
Speaker 4: the court of public opinion is a very real thing
4:11
Speaker 4: and it's very possible to do things that are heinous
4:14
Speaker 4: and deeply immoral and sleazy and scuzzy and reputation-destroying and
4:21
Speaker 4: yet still be within the bounds of consent and legally
4:24
Speaker 4: not in trouble for that. That may well be what
4:28
Speaker 4: happened here. It may well be a sort of circumstance
4:31
Speaker 4: in which the ruining of the perpetrator's reputations is exactly
4:35
Speaker 4: what is called for here. Nonetheless, we do believe in
4:37
Speaker 4: innocent until proven guilty in this country. And there's something
4:41
Speaker 4: more than a little unseemly about the rush to turn
4:44
Speaker 4: this into a familiar story. Ah, you know how bad
4:47
Speaker 4: those fraternity guys can be. Maybe they were, maybe they
4:50
Speaker 4: were not. But the whole point is you're not supposed
4:51
Speaker 4: to make these judgments based on, you know, if you've
4:53
Speaker 4: had a bad experience with a guy in a fraternity
4:56
Speaker 4: X years ago, that really doesn't mean that these guys
4:59
Speaker 4: are guilty or these guys are innocent. Those are completely
5:01
Speaker 4: different circumstances. I would also kind of say, look, I
5:04
Speaker 4: don't know if this is a legit comparison or not,
5:08
Speaker 4: but I do know there was a time in the
5:10
Speaker 4: Duke Lacrosse case where everybody thought this was an open
5:12
Speaker 4: and shut case and, ah, these guys were just the
5:15
Speaker 4: worst and they committed obvious terrible crimes and then the
5:20
Speaker 4: entire case fell apart and it was not done that.
5:22
Speaker 4: It was a case of an absolute runaway prosecutor. We
5:26
Speaker 4: don't know what happened here. It's good to reserve judgment.
5:28
Speaker 4: It's good to say, We don't know what happened here.
5:31
Speaker 4: There are some very serious and troubling allegations. There are
5:33
Speaker 4: also some contradictions in the accounts of what happened. This
5:37
Speaker 4: is what, you know, police and investigations are supposed to
5:40
Speaker 4: be for. We're all amateurs on the outside of this.
5:42
Speaker 4: We don't know what happened. Having said, you know, but
5:45
Speaker 4: if you're a politician, you're like, ah, you know, patriarchy.
5:49
Speaker 4: I would say at some point someone's going to say
5:52
Speaker 4: this is white male privilege, even though several of the
5:55
Speaker 4: young men accused are minorities. And boy, isn't it nice
5:59
Speaker 4: to see those accused of terrible things? Great. They look
6:02
Speaker 4: like America. We finally have diversity in our, you know,
6:06
Speaker 4: I know I have a dark and terrible sense of humor.
6:07
Speaker 4: I wrote all about the botched execution today in the
6:09
Speaker 4: morning jolt. So it's all dark from here until the weekend.
6:13
Speaker 4: That's my preparation for what's coming this weekend. But anyway,
6:17
Speaker 4: so we will see what happened. But it's kind of
6:19
Speaker 4: unnerving to see a bunch of Democratic politicians, I haven't
6:23
Speaker 4: heard of any Republicans yet, running to this and kind
6:26
Speaker 4: of waving the bloody shirt, so to speak, And trying
6:29
Speaker 4: to get people riled up about this when that's what
6:32
Speaker 4: we have a U.S. criminal justice system for. Now, is
6:36
Speaker 4: it possible the prosecutor hesitated when he shouldn't have? Yeah,
6:39
Speaker 4: it's possible. Maybe just James will conclude that. Maybe she won't.
6:42
Speaker 4: We don't know any of that stuff now. And, you know,
6:45
Speaker 4: particularly as we head into a midterm election, it's less
6:47
Speaker 4: than reassuring to see people who already have come to
6:50
Speaker 4: a conclusion about what happened and who's guilty and who
6:54
Speaker 4: needs to be punished over it.
6:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen more than a few people suggest that
6:57
Speaker 2: Democrats are trying to use this case to bump up
6:59
Speaker 2: turnout among women, especially Democratic-leaning women. I don't know if
7:03
Speaker 2: that's the case or whether there's another motive here. It's
7:06
Speaker 2: just odd that all of a sudden so many prominent
7:08
Speaker 2: people would move to this. And I don't know what
7:12
Speaker 2: you think about Tish James suddenly being front and center
7:15
Speaker 2: in this case. But if we know anything about Tish James...
7:18
Speaker 2: she's not exactly likely to leave politics at the door
7:20
Speaker 2: before going in to investigate the facts.
7:22
Speaker 4: I was going to say, when you run for office
7:24
Speaker 4: saying the NRA is a terrorist organization, I'm going to
7:26
Speaker 4: shut them down, that really doesn't seem like you're going
7:30
Speaker 4: into this with an objective sense of evaluating the evidence. And,
7:33
Speaker 4: you know, is she going to be a better job
7:35
Speaker 4: of evaluating the evidence in this case? I suppose it's possible,
7:38
Speaker 4: but that track record does make you pause and think that, oh, no,
7:42
Speaker 4: this might be, you know, if there's a chance to
7:44
Speaker 4: politicize it and sensationalize it, there's a decent chance Trish
7:48
Speaker 4: James will go down that path.
7:50
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, the track record certainly does back up that concern.
7:54
Speaker 5: All right.
7:54
Speaker 2: Well, we'll see what happens next and if this continues
7:56
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7:59
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8:03
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9:48
Speaker 2: let's head up to another Senate race. We talked about
9:50
Speaker 2: so many of them yesterday, but one we didn't get
9:51
Speaker 2: to yesterday is Maine, where, of course, Graham Platner's out.
9:54
Speaker 2: Troy Jackson is in. Susan Collins and Troy Jackson, depending
9:58
Speaker 2: on the poll, all of them are very close, but
10:00
Speaker 2: Susan Collins has been ahead in a couple polls, including
10:02
Speaker 2: the New York Times poll. lately, Troy Jackson ahead and
10:06
Speaker 2: a couple of others. Troy Jackson is a little bit
10:09
Speaker 2: of an odd duck, as we've seen, not just because
10:12
Speaker 2: of his very friendly relations with his second cousin, but
10:15
Speaker 2: he just seems like an awkward guy. And he was
10:18
Speaker 2: in an interview that's gotten him into a little bit
10:20
Speaker 2: of trouble this week as he tries to insist that
10:24
Speaker 2: what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide. And he
10:27
Speaker 2: was frustrated that Jewish residents of Maine didn't like that characterization.
10:32
Speaker 1: Here's what he said.
10:33
Speaker 3: You called the Israel war with Gaza a genocide.
10:36
Speaker 5: Yes, I restated that last week. You know, I mean,
10:42
Speaker 5: it's unfortunate that there are people here in Maine that
10:46
Speaker 5: don't like to use that term only because, you know,
10:48
Speaker 5: they're Jewish and, you know, what that means to them
10:52
Speaker 5: with the Holocaust. You know, it fits that description.
10:55
Speaker 4: And.
10:57
Speaker 1: You know, it is.
10:58
Speaker 5: It's an unbelievable thing that's happened there, that people that
11:01
Speaker 5: are innocent are being murdered, and it is a genocide.
11:05
Speaker 1: Even though Hamas in Gaza started the war by massacring 1,200 Israelis,
11:10
Speaker 1: many civilians, women, and children.
11:12
Speaker 5: You could argue the same thing for Hamas, too. I mean,
11:15
Speaker 5: you know, there's people that are wrong on both sides
11:18
Speaker 5: of this issue, but in the end— you know, senseless murders,
11:22
Speaker 5: horrific murders are happening to both sides and that has
11:26
Speaker 5: to stop. The United States can't continue to send blank
11:28
Speaker 5: checks to Netanyahu to, you know, continue to perpetrate this.
11:32
Speaker 2: That's the docking point, blank checks to Netanyahu. So, Jim,
11:36
Speaker 2: he's both-sizing this, which is.
11:38
Speaker 4: Literally both-sizing, yes.
11:40
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
11:41
Speaker 2: But now he's apologizing, not for what he said about
11:45
Speaker 2: what Israel is doing in Gaza. He says, I believe
11:46
Speaker 2: what's happening in Gaza is genocide. And I also understand
11:49
Speaker 2: that word carries particular weight for many Jewish families given
11:52
Speaker 2: the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews. In trying
11:55
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that, I misspoke and made a generalization about
11:58
Speaker 2: Jewish Mainers' views that doesn't reflect what I meant to say.
12:01
Speaker 2: I apologize for the pain that caused. Mainers hold a
12:04
Speaker 2: range of deeply considered views, and I promise I will
12:07
Speaker 2: always listen and work to approach these conversations with the
12:09
Speaker 2: care and respect they deserve in the Senate. I'll fight
12:11
Speaker 2: anti-Semitism and work for lasting peace and security for Palestinians
12:14
Speaker 2: and Israelis. So he's not backing away from what he said,
12:17
Speaker 2: but gosh, Jim, those Jewish constituents, man, they're just so
12:21
Speaker 2: picky about their terminology.
12:23
Speaker 4: First of all, I saw someone responding to that original
12:26
Speaker 4: comment by Troy Jackson and just, you know, on Twitter
12:30
Speaker 4: or X, who was just very upset that Troy Jackson
12:32
Speaker 4: is even worse than Graham Platner. Now, you're not going
12:34
Speaker 4: to see me defend Troy Jackson very much. I'm just
12:37
Speaker 4: going to say worse than Graham Platner. that's a really
12:41
Speaker 4: high bar to clear, right? There's, if it's not the Nazism,
12:44
Speaker 4: then it's the raping. Like that's really, you know, abusing people,
12:48
Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff. Plattner would probably argue that
12:51
Speaker 4: his anti-Semitism is just skin deep. But the, you know,
12:54
Speaker 4: with Jackson, you know, commentary like that, why are Jews
12:59
Speaker 4: so hyped up about the term genocide? Well, because they,
13:03
Speaker 4: you know, their ancestors went through something. And, you know,
13:06
Speaker 4: I've seen this statistic going around. Before World War II,
13:10
Speaker 4: In the Holocaust and afterwards, the Jewish population of Poland
13:13
Speaker 4: went down by like 96%. Almost entirely wiped out. In Gaza,
13:18
Speaker 4: the population of Gaza has gone down 3% since the
13:22
Speaker 4: start of the conflict. Most of the casualties are military
13:25
Speaker 4: age males. You bomb people, are there going to be
13:29
Speaker 4: civilian casualties? Yeah, there are some women and children killed.
13:32
Speaker 4: But it's very hard to put those two together and say, ah,
13:35
Speaker 4: killing 96% versus killing 3%, wiping out every man, woman,
13:39
Speaker 4: and child you can find versus mostly targeting military-age males.
13:43
Speaker 4: Those aren't the same thing. And that's why both sides
13:46
Speaker 4: really does not seem to do this justice. And I
13:49
Speaker 4: just kind of think it feels very, you know, Our
13:54
Speaker 4: friends on the left keep emphasizing how empathetic they are
13:57
Speaker 4: and how much they feel what other people feel, and
13:59
Speaker 4: they understand that. And then they say, you know, these Jews,
14:03
Speaker 4: they just get so hung up on the Holocaust. Yeah, yeah,
14:07
Speaker 4: they do, with good reason, because when, you know, six
14:10
Speaker 4: million of your people get killed... You get very, very,
14:13
Speaker 4: you know, and also, by the way, what else happens?
14:15
Speaker 4: The universal scapegoating of them for all problems in German society, right?
14:20
Speaker 4: What are we seeing today? If, you know, if not
14:23
Speaker 4: all Jews are being blamed, it's just the Zionists, wink, wink,
14:28
Speaker 4: in which, you know, somebody has observed, like, think about
14:30
Speaker 4: how much discussion of foreign policy there is in this country.
14:33
Speaker 4: Do we talk about China? And it's aggressive against Taiwan?
14:36
Speaker 4: You and I do. Certain corners of our news media do,
14:39
Speaker 4: but not nearly as much discussion of Israel and Gaza.
14:42
Speaker 4: Do we discuss Russia and Ukraine? You and I do.
14:44
Speaker 4: Lots of certain people do. But by and large, that
14:46
Speaker 4: is not something that gets nearly as much coverage as
14:49
Speaker 4: Israel and Gaza. God help you if you're like Armenia
14:52
Speaker 4: and Azerbaijan or something like that. This is an obsessive.
14:57
Speaker 4: You would think talking to certain folks, including Democratic officials,
15:00
Speaker 4: that what is happening in Gaza is the single most
15:02
Speaker 4: important event going on in the world. And it has
15:05
Speaker 4: been that way coming up on three years now. to
15:09
Speaker 4: the exclusion or to the, you know, shoving all other
15:11
Speaker 4: foreign policy issues off the stage. I think it says
15:14
Speaker 4: a great deal about Troy Jackson. By the way, in Maine, like,
15:17
Speaker 4: are there, you know, again, a lot of Palestinians in Maine?
15:20
Speaker 4: Is that, you know, a lot of Arab Americans, a
15:22
Speaker 4: lot of Muslim Americans in Maine? You know, it's, I believe,
15:25
Speaker 4: if I remember correctly, it's the oldest and whitest state
15:27
Speaker 4: of the union, or it's very high up there in
15:29
Speaker 4: both categories. I think it says a great deal about
15:31
Speaker 4: the progressive mindset that this is the foreign policy issue
15:35
Speaker 4: that most animates them and gets them most motivated to
15:37
Speaker 4: go to the polls. All right.
15:38
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15:40
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15:44
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15:47
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16:28
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16:30
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16:32
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Speaker 2: slash martini and give today. All right, Jim, we talked
16:59
Speaker 2: about this issue a long time ago, I think a
17:01
Speaker 2: few years ago, probably during COVID or in the wake
17:04
Speaker 2: of COVID. And I think California was ground zero for this.
17:07
Speaker 2: But ghost students, you know, we talked about ghost enrollees
17:11
Speaker 2: in Obamacare that were just rooted out just a couple
17:14
Speaker 2: of weeks ago. You know, people who don't exist, but
17:16
Speaker 2: they got signed up anyway so that people could be
17:18
Speaker 2: collecting the benefits somewhere. Well, the same thing is happening
17:21
Speaker 2: with higher education. Fox News with the story. A hidden
17:24
Speaker 2: scheme draining millions from the federal student aid system and
17:27
Speaker 2: infiltrating college campuses has emerged as a key target of
17:30
Speaker 2: the Trump administration's fraud crackdown, with officials faulting Biden-era identity
17:34
Speaker 2: verification policies for opening the door to it. One fraud
17:38
Speaker 2: expert is now highlighting the red flag students and parents
17:41
Speaker 2: must look for as the fall semester begins, warning fraudsters
17:44
Speaker 2: are fabricating identities to enroll at colleges and collect aid
17:47
Speaker 2: that is meant for legitimate students. In June, the Education
17:51
Speaker 2: Department said it saved taxpayers nearly $ 200 million after requiring
17:56
Speaker 2: high-risk applicants to present government-issued identification when applying for federal
18:01
Speaker 2: student aid. So, Jim, it's not just that they're fleecing
18:05
Speaker 2: the government and taxpayers. They're fleecing families who are legitimately
18:09
Speaker 2: trying to get this assistance to go to college. And
18:12
Speaker 2: once again, a little photo ID is something that was
18:15
Speaker 2: a little too much for the Biden administration.
18:17
Speaker 4: Greg, how is it I live in a world where
18:21
Speaker 4: I have to use two-factor authentication to verify the two-factor
18:25
Speaker 4: authorization on every app that I use all the time
18:29
Speaker 4: for everything, every website, all kinds of stuff. But apparently,
18:33
Speaker 4: various government programs, you just send in a form. Oh,
18:37
Speaker 4: and we'll start sending you piles of cash immediately. I
18:39
Speaker 4: exaggerate slightly, but it is kind of baffling to see.
18:42
Speaker 4: Not just the Minnesota fraud case, not just the very Ohio,
18:45
Speaker 4: very California, all these other state programs. Look, if you say... Hi,
18:49
Speaker 4: we're the government, and we're going to give you money
18:51
Speaker 4: if you qualify. I hate to break this to various
18:54
Speaker 4: government officials, but people will lie. People will make up people,
19:00
Speaker 4: create names, make up social security numbers. By the way,
19:03
Speaker 4: somebody else in this world must have the social security
19:05
Speaker 4: number 123-45-6789. And William Sapphire used to write that he
19:14
Speaker 4: never gave his social security number out to anyone. And
19:16
Speaker 4: I figured that must be it because it's so cool.
19:19
Speaker 4: Everybody would know that. But the second thing is also
19:21
Speaker 4: like once somebody knows that, yeah, the good news is
19:23
Speaker 4: it's easy to remember. The bad news is everybody else
19:25
Speaker 4: is like that's the default if somebody else was making
19:27
Speaker 4: up a number. The number of passwords in this country
19:30
Speaker 4: that are 1, 2, 3, 4 is really unnerving. And
19:33
Speaker 4: so like easiest hacking tip you're ever going to learn
19:37
Speaker 4: is to guess that the number of people whose password
19:39
Speaker 4: is password. is disturbing. The number of people whose password
19:43
Speaker 4: is incorrect. So if you type it in wrong, the
19:47
Speaker 4: system will remind you your password is incorrect. All kinds of,
19:53
Speaker 4: but the other thing, and people know I write thrillers,
19:55
Speaker 4: so I think about this. The number of people who operate,
19:58
Speaker 4: sometimes it's like Department of Motor Vehicles type systems. Sometimes
20:02
Speaker 4: it's even more sensitive government systems. Now, obviously for that,
20:04
Speaker 4: you need lots of very fancy passwords. The number of
20:07
Speaker 4: people who keep their passwords on a yellow Post-it note
20:10
Speaker 4: next to the computer screen, particularly if they have a desktop,
20:14
Speaker 4: is really disturbing. It's like we're trying to make life
20:17
Speaker 4: easy for the people who want to steal this information. Anyway,
20:19
Speaker 4: in light of all this, you'd think it would be
20:22
Speaker 4: harder to get government checks sent to a non-existent person.
20:24
Speaker 4: And I don't mean good non-existent people like our old
20:27
Speaker 4: friend Irving Schmidlapp running for every Democratic office he can find. No,
20:30
Speaker 4: but like this one, like you would think, and I
20:32
Speaker 4: think this goes back to the Minnesota State Auditor who said,
20:35
Speaker 4: For a lot of people running these programs in the
20:37
Speaker 4: state government, it's almost as if fraud never crossed their mind.
20:40
Speaker 4: They believe their job is to put out the money
20:43
Speaker 4: as quickly as possible. They really believe that they're helping people.
20:47
Speaker 4: And they never think, well, what if this person doesn't exist?
20:50
Speaker 4: What if this person doesn't... What if this person... This
20:53
Speaker 4: is someone who's trying to scam me. Because here's the thing.
20:56
Speaker 4: If all of these people were in person, you start
21:00
Speaker 4: noticing the same person coming in under different names over
21:03
Speaker 4: and over again. That doesn't happen, apparently. So it's just
21:06
Speaker 4: utterly bizarre. It's frustrating to see this. And let the
21:09
Speaker 4: record show that as soon as Greg proposed this as
21:12
Speaker 4: a topic on today's program, my initial response was, I
21:15
Speaker 4: ain't afraid of no ghost students. That's exactly right.
21:19
Speaker 2: But you put your finger on it. For Democrats, the
21:21
Speaker 2: success of a program is determined by how many people
21:23
Speaker 2: are on it. For Republicans, it's how many people we
21:25
Speaker 2: can get off of it or at least clean up
21:27
Speaker 2: so we only have the people who legitimately deserve that
21:30
Speaker 2: aid are getting it.
21:31
Speaker 4: If you believe in these programs, you should really be
21:35
Speaker 4: animated and driven to remove all the fraud you can
21:38
Speaker 4: find because that leaves less money for the people who
21:41
Speaker 4: genuinely need it. Every Somali scam artist who's taking the
21:44
Speaker 4: money back to to East Africa is taking money that
21:49
Speaker 4: was meant to help real people in Minnesota. And so
21:52
Speaker 4: it just kind of, you know, the lackadaisical enforcement, like
21:56
Speaker 4: maybe it helps the ballot box. I don't know. Maybe
21:58
Speaker 4: it helps with Ellison asking for donations from the people
22:02
Speaker 4: who are under investigation, stuff like that. Like I can
22:04
Speaker 4: see bad reasons to do this. I can't see good
22:06
Speaker 4: reasons to have very spotty enforcement of these sorts of things.
22:09
Speaker 5: No.
22:10
Speaker 2: And like so many other issues, you know, the attempt
22:12
Speaker 2: to get to the bottom of it has been completely
22:14
Speaker 2: stonewalled and You know, Republicans demonized a number of different
22:19
Speaker 2: ways for trying to find answers. So in any event,
22:22
Speaker 2: good work. This administration is doing quite a bit of
22:25
Speaker 2: work to uncover fraud. And keep going, because I'm still
22:27
Speaker 2: convinced that we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg here.
22:30
Speaker 4: All right.
22:30
Speaker 2: In a moment, it is Friday. The Bears and the
22:32
Speaker 2: Jets play on Sunday. It is the final attack ads
22:37
Speaker 2: heading into that game. All right, Jim, it has been
22:44
Speaker 2: quite a week. These very aggressive third-party interest groups, these PACs,
22:48
Speaker 2: they've been buying time in the chaser all week long
22:52
Speaker 2: and building, building, building up to Sunday's game. If you
22:55
Speaker 2: haven't heard these ads, brace yourself, but I encourage you
22:58
Speaker 2: to go back to the previous episodes this week to
23:01
Speaker 2: hear them all. But as we wrap up here at
23:03
Speaker 2: the end of the week, we have the final installments
23:06
Speaker 2: of these ads. First of all, this one targeting the
23:09
Speaker 2: Chicago Bears.
23:11
Speaker 4: Kathy Hochul is the governor of New York. And we're
23:14
Speaker 4: not saying she's a good governor, but there are certain
23:16
Speaker 4: things you can count on. She's probably never going to
23:19
Speaker 4: run for president in the United States. And if she
23:21
Speaker 4: ever runs, she'll never be elected. Can you say the
23:25
Speaker 4: same about Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker? No, you can't, because
23:29
Speaker 4: he's got a billion dollars and he's willing to spend
23:31
Speaker 4: every last dollar. In fact, look at your wallet right now.
23:35
Speaker 4: Is there a $ 20 bill in there that you don't
23:37
Speaker 4: remember getting?
23:38
Speaker 1: That's from J.B.
23:39
Speaker 4: Pritzker. He put it there just to get you to
23:41
Speaker 4: vote for him for president in the 2028 presidential election.
23:45
Speaker 4: Can you trust a team from a state that has
23:47
Speaker 4: a governor like that? Probably not. Trust the one that
23:51
Speaker 4: has an incompetent and poor Democratic governor, the New York Jets.
23:55
Speaker 4: Brought to you by Americans United for a Bears Defeat
23:57
Speaker 4: on October 4th.
23:59
Speaker 2: That'd be the first Democrat to put money into my wallet,
24:01
Speaker 2: I think. That would be, yeah, but you can't trust J.B.
24:04
Speaker 1: Pritzker.
24:04
Speaker 2: He is not the reason to cheer for the Bears
24:06
Speaker 2: this weekend. But Kathy Hochul is a positive comparison. That
24:10
Speaker 2: doesn't happen a lot, certainly on this podcast.
24:12
Speaker 4: No, it does not, yeah. It's the poor performance you
24:16
Speaker 4: can count on. You know, there's stability there. There's predictability there,
24:20
Speaker 4: you know.
24:21
Speaker 3: Yes.
24:21
Speaker 4: All right.
24:22
Speaker 2: Well, let's take a look at the pro Bears pack
24:25
Speaker 2: going against the Jets here and their closing message. Football
24:29
Speaker 2: games like elections are about the future and inspiring the
24:32
Speaker 2: younger generations to be their best and be ready to lead.
24:35
Speaker 2: And understanding the example set the last time teams were
24:37
Speaker 2: champions really matters. The Jets last won the Super Bowl
24:40
Speaker 2: after the 1968 season, a time when young people claimed
24:43
Speaker 2: to be sharing peace, love and rock and roll. All
24:45
Speaker 2: they were really sharing were LSD, venereal diseases and communist
24:49
Speaker 2: propaganda spoon-fed to them by their Marxist professors who hated America.
24:53
Speaker 2: When the Bears won in 1985, it was the era
24:56
Speaker 2: of young people who loved America and were excited about
24:59
Speaker 2: a future fueled by freedom, opportunity, declining inflation, and, of course,
25:02
Speaker 2: low marginal tax rates. Which America do you want to
25:05
Speaker 2: live in? As Nancy Reagan would say, just say no
25:08
Speaker 2: to the Jets. The Ground the Jets Pack is responsible
25:11
Speaker 2: for the content of this advertising.
25:13
Speaker 1: Jim, there might have been a little bit of drug
25:14
Speaker 1: use in the 80s, too, but, you know.
25:16
Speaker 4: I was going to say, you know. Several NFL teams
25:20
Speaker 4: had quite a bit of drug use. Also, 80s college
25:24
Speaker 4: campuses full of conservatism. What's that? Okay. All right. You know,
25:27
Speaker 4: I'm a little skeptical of that, but okay.
25:30
Speaker 2: You know, if you think of Alex P. Keaton and
25:33
Speaker 2: I don't know what Charlie Sheen's character on Wall Street.
25:35
Speaker 5: Also Mallory.
25:35
Speaker 4: And Nick. I never got a good sense of the
25:40
Speaker 4: politics of who was the nerdy friend. Skippy. Skippy. I
25:43
Speaker 4: was going to say Stewie, but that's Family Guy.
25:46
Speaker 1: So, yeah.
25:47
Speaker 4: Yes. Greg, could you imagine if our teams played like
25:50
Speaker 4: every season and like we're conference division rivals?
25:54
Speaker 1: That would be intense.
25:55
Speaker 4: Yeah.
25:55
Speaker 1: Twice a year and maybe again in playoffs.
25:57
Speaker 4: But maybe like, first of all, I'm noticing people really
26:00
Speaker 4: seem to enjoy these. Again, these are not you and me.
26:02
Speaker 4: These are AIs. They use AI to make our voices. Exactly.
26:04
Speaker 4: It's not similar. Exactly. But maybe at some point, like
26:07
Speaker 4: intermittently through the season, we just pick some other NFL
26:10
Speaker 4: franchise to add city to rag on. because you saw,
26:14
Speaker 4: I assume, I've already used this joke, Taylor Swift pointing
26:18
Speaker 4: to the ring and saying that's the only ring that
26:21
Speaker 4: the Chiefs have won without the refs and all that
26:23
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. We could have a lot of fun.
26:25
Speaker 4: And by the way, Kansas City is a delightful city.
26:27
Speaker 4: Lots of fun, lots of great food, great people out there,
26:32
Speaker 4: very friendly in the trip I took there. But I'm
26:34
Speaker 4: just going to say, one, it was not pass interference
26:37
Speaker 4: on Sauce Gardener. Second of all... Like, since they got really,
26:41
Speaker 4: really good, like, between that and Taylor Mania, like, they've
26:45
Speaker 4: just become absolutely insufferable. And, like, you can almost see
26:48
Speaker 4: during the sack Patrick Mahomes looking to the ref and
26:52
Speaker 4: the ref saying, yeah, you can't hit him. Sorry. That's
26:54
Speaker 4: just not allowed in this game. Do you have any
26:57
Speaker 4: idea how many commercials in the entire U.S. economy runs
27:02
Speaker 4: on companies that have Patrick Mahomes or Travis Kelsey in
27:05
Speaker 4: their commercials? That's it.
27:07
Speaker 1: And in some cases.
27:08
Speaker 4: Or Andy Reid.
27:09
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
27:10
Speaker 2: So yes, plenty of fodder there. I'm sure you have
27:14
Speaker 2: years of material on the Patriots and others in the
27:17
Speaker 2: division and so forth. So yeah, that could be a
27:20
Speaker 2: lucrative way to maybe close out the week at different
27:23
Speaker 2: times during the season, depending on what the matchups are.
27:25
Speaker 2: So Jim, have a fantastic weekend. One of us will
27:28
Speaker 2: be in a really good mood on Monday, the other...
27:31
Speaker 2: Probably filled me in a pretty good mood. Anyway, I'll
27:33
Speaker 2: see you then.
27:33
Speaker 4: See you Monday, Greg.
27:34
Speaker 2: Jim Garrity, National Review. I'm Greg Karambas of Radio America.
27:37
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being with us today. Please be
27:39
Speaker 2: sure to subscribe to the podcast. If you don't already,
27:41
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27:43
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27:46
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27:48
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27:49
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27:52
Speaker 1: Follow us both on X. He's at Jim Garrity.
27:54
Speaker 2: I'm at Greg Karambas. Have a terrific weekend. Join us
27:57
Speaker 2: on Monday for the next Three Martini Lunch.