After a campaign built on the promise that Trump was going to look out for his voters, he started his administration getting sidetracked by DOGE and Musk's phony ideas about saving money.
Loved watching Zelensky's facial expressions during that clip where Trump was woofing about helpful Putin will be and how concerned Putin is for Ukraine's welfare.
I will join with those who are a little frustrated with your discussion about the MN fraud. I had done a lot of reading about this when it recently became The Most Important Right Wing Thing, I thought from reputable sources. My understanding was this happened 3-5 years ago, with the investigation initiated by Tim Walz and the work being mostly done by the Biden DOJ. Somewhere around 60 people, including the non-Somali ringleader, are in jail, in prison, or awaiting trial. And investigations are continuing.
I feel that snarking at Amy Klobuchar for not addressing this loudly in 2025 was unnecessary. Unless everything I read was wrong, the work had been done to hold people accountable.
Just adding to the take on MN Fraud. This happened 3 years ago. It has been and continues to be addressed by our state. I volunteer for a non-profit and I can tell you that NO ONE is getting money without providing very detailed accounts of how it is being spent on a quarterly basis. Don't take the Republican bait!
Kind of repeating what’s already been said, but as a MN resident, the fraud stuff is not new news. It’s been extensively reported locally and many people have been convicted and are in prison. The investigations continue and I have faith that AG Keith Ellison will continue prosecutions.
Oh, and regarding the Minnesota fraud in light of the Justice Department reorientation, it seems like MAGA only cares about white collar crime if it's committed by brown color people.
I can tell that Tim is unfamiliar with Bardot because we American barbarians have always known her as "Bridget." The sex-symbol referred to as "Brigitte" is of the later Nielsen variety.
I saw an article listing Bardot references in songs which included Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Free" as well as "Stratford-on-Guy." Both are worth checking out.
Please do some research before exclaiming "$9 billion??" worth of fraud in Minnesota without any evidence. Tim, your podcast has been a mainstay, you might say a bulwark, and an actual delight to me in this horrific era of DumpsterFire 2. However, this episode is not the first one to show your ignorance about Minnesota. Any and all fraud is, of course, wrong and, of course, it's being investigated in Minnesota. As for the "Feeding our Future" scandal, the ring leader was Aimee Bock, a white woman, convicted by a federal jury in March 2025 on all fraud charges. She accused the MN Education Dept of "systemic racism" when it delayed funding her sites during the pandemic. She is a master manipulator and took advantage of the chaos during the pandemic and of those who trusted her, including Somali immigrants. Once again, the right has turned a complicated issue into "immigrants are bad." Please, please, check your facts before singing that refrain. Love to all y'all.
Usually Hanukkah gifts aren't large except maybe for one on the last night or spread out one gift over several nights. My friends gave their teenager skis, ski boots, and the other accoutrements of skiing over the whole holiday. One ski at a time, same with the boots.
I want to take some issue with Tim's comments about Medicaid Fraud and the politics, as having worked in the arena of state Medicaid prgrams for 30+ years. The sole reason this hit the national news is because the Rs and JD Vancce made it a talking point for their anti Democratic (esp Walz) anti immigrantion/anti Somali/racist rants. "Fraudsters" are alwasy looking for the next easy target in Medicaid and Medicare. In Rick Scott's day it was nursing homes and rehab (at the time the statute did not cover prosecution of corporate leadership absent smoking guns - Health South was part of the reason the statute was changed so that leadership could more readily be prosecuted for wilful ignorance and attestations of lawfulness, truth & accuracy) . Its been hospice, home health, cardiac implants, DME, and now the hot fraud arena is residential treatment and supportve housing especially in settings that tend to treat members of a group that seek care "among their own" whether or not the fraud perpertrators are actually members of the group or not (they set up shell settings). Just last year in Arizona there was a large fraud uncovered involving residential and supportive housing for behavioral health and substance abuse targetting Native Americans. I believe there is also an investigation that hist the news in Ohio (I may be wrong about that). And Minnesota was a type of affinity fraud as well - which happens in all settings where there is money and is particualry hard to uncover, becasue people do not want to "rat out" within the group. And I suspect the "billions" assertion is (other than being exagerated) inclusive of the federal Medicad share (in the vicinity of 60% or more) and across more states than just Minnesota.
Its hard for states, esp smaller states, to uncover this stuff. At the core, the investigation is data driven - uncovered through analysis of paid claims. That builds in time delays of more than a year even to bring claims to final payment status, plus federal and state law builds in a lot of back and forth aimed at giving providers a chance to "cure" suspected problems/erroneus claims. And you need a lot of claims typically to see something is "off." You have to have to staff and really good IT to be looking for it across all claims for all Medicaid services. Money is tight and there are restrictions on what can be spent in the program on adminstration v. services. Maybe this is an arena where AI will help eventually but now its a pretty manual process. And all this time is before it goes from the agency to to the state AG or feds for possible prosecution. In Az, the state was so overwhelmed they could not come up with a better way to handle it initally than just suspending every provider of that type, which impacted service delivery and the businesses of good faith providers. None of this is to say fraud is excusable - just that this is no where near as unusual a situation as Tim and others may think.
Finally, while I take Tim's point more should be said politically - prosecuters and investigators are always going to be mindful of saying too much too early - and my actually be prohibited from doing so, so not suprised esp at someone with Amy Klobochar's background. Medicaid is complicated and trying to explain what happened, or it happens otehr places, etc. is just going to sound like excuses, and not real productive to run around saying "its not just Somalis/immigrants" IMO.
So that's my rant as a retired health care attorney .
I really appreciate your explanation here. I wanted to point out that Tim's advice to Dems to amplify Medicaid fraud is a good idea but more complicated than it seems which your post clearly explains. Also, trump's administration has literally gutted white collar crime units so federal investigations are a pipe dream at this point. Here in MD the PT sector, and elder care industry, are riddled with fraud on small and large scale. Dems should loudly put forward an aggressive position on funding inspectors and penalties.
First - this was a great pod!! Tim and Bill, fantastic :-) Thank you! really enjoyed it all.
I agree (of course!) with Tim that we should all be concerned about that fraud - I loved Bill's response that this is really an issue for state executive action - audit, blue ribbon commission with a report in 60 days or whatever - 100% on target. BUT. And I speak as a former auditor here: have we seen evidence yet? Evidence of fraud in the tens of millions, let alone hundreds of millions or billions? I'm holding back until evidence is produced. What we auditors call third party, objectively verifiable evidence.
Because - given the history of this Trump team and given their desperation to distract from their failure to comply with the law to produce all records in re the Epstein mess - and given their focus on a community that is (a) black and (b) largely immigrant (their two favorite whipping posts) - I will be not at all surprised if we learn in the next several months that the fraud is more like $2 million. Or $200K.
Still fraud, still bad, still need a thorough audit and significant tightening of controls. But.
More information has come out about the child care fraud in Minnesota. The head of the scheme was a white woman named Amy Bach.
Loved watching Zelensky's facial expressions during that clip where Trump was woofing about helpful Putin will be and how concerned Putin is for Ukraine's welfare.
My god, what an unqualified disaster this man is.
I will join with those who are a little frustrated with your discussion about the MN fraud. I had done a lot of reading about this when it recently became The Most Important Right Wing Thing, I thought from reputable sources. My understanding was this happened 3-5 years ago, with the investigation initiated by Tim Walz and the work being mostly done by the Biden DOJ. Somewhere around 60 people, including the non-Somali ringleader, are in jail, in prison, or awaiting trial. And investigations are continuing.
I feel that snarking at Amy Klobuchar for not addressing this loudly in 2025 was unnecessary. Unless everything I read was wrong, the work had been done to hold people accountable.
Tim is 100% goading Bill and putting on an act every time he brings up Bill’s age 😂
Just adding to the take on MN Fraud. This happened 3 years ago. It has been and continues to be addressed by our state. I volunteer for a non-profit and I can tell you that NO ONE is getting money without providing very detailed accounts of how it is being spent on a quarterly basis. Don't take the Republican bait!
I still celebrate through Epiphany, the last day of Christmas! Some of us hold onto those observances!
Here is a good article on Minnesota Medicaid fraud situation, which has been known about for a long time, from reason.com. https://reason.com/2025/12/30/the-minnesota-welfare-fraud-story-is-really-about-a-broken-medicaid-bureaucracy/
Kind of repeating what’s already been said, but as a MN resident, the fraud stuff is not new news. It’s been extensively reported locally and many people have been convicted and are in prison. The investigations continue and I have faith that AG Keith Ellison will continue prosecutions.
Oh, and regarding the Minnesota fraud in light of the Justice Department reorientation, it seems like MAGA only cares about white collar crime if it's committed by brown color people.
I can tell that Tim is unfamiliar with Bardot because we American barbarians have always known her as "Bridget." The sex-symbol referred to as "Brigitte" is of the later Nielsen variety.
I saw an article listing Bardot references in songs which included Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Free" as well as "Stratford-on-Guy." Both are worth checking out.
Please do some research before exclaiming "$9 billion??" worth of fraud in Minnesota without any evidence. Tim, your podcast has been a mainstay, you might say a bulwark, and an actual delight to me in this horrific era of DumpsterFire 2. However, this episode is not the first one to show your ignorance about Minnesota. Any and all fraud is, of course, wrong and, of course, it's being investigated in Minnesota. As for the "Feeding our Future" scandal, the ring leader was Aimee Bock, a white woman, convicted by a federal jury in March 2025 on all fraud charges. She accused the MN Education Dept of "systemic racism" when it delayed funding her sites during the pandemic. She is a master manipulator and took advantage of the chaos during the pandemic and of those who trusted her, including Somali immigrants. Once again, the right has turned a complicated issue into "immigrants are bad." Please, please, check your facts before singing that refrain. Love to all y'all.
https://www.startribune.com/feeding-our-future-leader-bragged-she-knew-how-to-make-money-as-fbi-closed-in-on-fraud-investigation/601230996
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/03/19/feeding-our-future-head-aimee-bock-convicted-on-all-fraud-charges
No they DO NOT believe a word of what they are saying. They KNOW there is no hoax. They know what they are doing is all in bad faith...
Usually Hanukkah gifts aren't large except maybe for one on the last night or spread out one gift over several nights. My friends gave their teenager skis, ski boots, and the other accoutrements of skiing over the whole holiday. One ski at a time, same with the boots.
I want to take some issue with Tim's comments about Medicaid Fraud and the politics, as having worked in the arena of state Medicaid prgrams for 30+ years. The sole reason this hit the national news is because the Rs and JD Vancce made it a talking point for their anti Democratic (esp Walz) anti immigrantion/anti Somali/racist rants. "Fraudsters" are alwasy looking for the next easy target in Medicaid and Medicare. In Rick Scott's day it was nursing homes and rehab (at the time the statute did not cover prosecution of corporate leadership absent smoking guns - Health South was part of the reason the statute was changed so that leadership could more readily be prosecuted for wilful ignorance and attestations of lawfulness, truth & accuracy) . Its been hospice, home health, cardiac implants, DME, and now the hot fraud arena is residential treatment and supportve housing especially in settings that tend to treat members of a group that seek care "among their own" whether or not the fraud perpertrators are actually members of the group or not (they set up shell settings). Just last year in Arizona there was a large fraud uncovered involving residential and supportive housing for behavioral health and substance abuse targetting Native Americans. I believe there is also an investigation that hist the news in Ohio (I may be wrong about that). And Minnesota was a type of affinity fraud as well - which happens in all settings where there is money and is particualry hard to uncover, becasue people do not want to "rat out" within the group. And I suspect the "billions" assertion is (other than being exagerated) inclusive of the federal Medicad share (in the vicinity of 60% or more) and across more states than just Minnesota.
Its hard for states, esp smaller states, to uncover this stuff. At the core, the investigation is data driven - uncovered through analysis of paid claims. That builds in time delays of more than a year even to bring claims to final payment status, plus federal and state law builds in a lot of back and forth aimed at giving providers a chance to "cure" suspected problems/erroneus claims. And you need a lot of claims typically to see something is "off." You have to have to staff and really good IT to be looking for it across all claims for all Medicaid services. Money is tight and there are restrictions on what can be spent in the program on adminstration v. services. Maybe this is an arena where AI will help eventually but now its a pretty manual process. And all this time is before it goes from the agency to to the state AG or feds for possible prosecution. In Az, the state was so overwhelmed they could not come up with a better way to handle it initally than just suspending every provider of that type, which impacted service delivery and the businesses of good faith providers. None of this is to say fraud is excusable - just that this is no where near as unusual a situation as Tim and others may think.
Finally, while I take Tim's point more should be said politically - prosecuters and investigators are always going to be mindful of saying too much too early - and my actually be prohibited from doing so, so not suprised esp at someone with Amy Klobochar's background. Medicaid is complicated and trying to explain what happened, or it happens otehr places, etc. is just going to sound like excuses, and not real productive to run around saying "its not just Somalis/immigrants" IMO.
So that's my rant as a retired health care attorney .
I really appreciate your explanation here. I wanted to point out that Tim's advice to Dems to amplify Medicaid fraud is a good idea but more complicated than it seems which your post clearly explains. Also, trump's administration has literally gutted white collar crime units so federal investigations are a pipe dream at this point. Here in MD the PT sector, and elder care industry, are riddled with fraud on small and large scale. Dems should loudly put forward an aggressive position on funding inspectors and penalties.
"Movement...business..racket".
Perhaps my all-time favorite maxim--by Eric Hoffer.
First - this was a great pod!! Tim and Bill, fantastic :-) Thank you! really enjoyed it all.
I agree (of course!) with Tim that we should all be concerned about that fraud - I loved Bill's response that this is really an issue for state executive action - audit, blue ribbon commission with a report in 60 days or whatever - 100% on target. BUT. And I speak as a former auditor here: have we seen evidence yet? Evidence of fraud in the tens of millions, let alone hundreds of millions or billions? I'm holding back until evidence is produced. What we auditors call third party, objectively verifiable evidence.
Because - given the history of this Trump team and given their desperation to distract from their failure to comply with the law to produce all records in re the Epstein mess - and given their focus on a community that is (a) black and (b) largely immigrant (their two favorite whipping posts) - I will be not at all surprised if we learn in the next several months that the fraud is more like $2 million. Or $200K.
Still fraud, still bad, still need a thorough audit and significant tightening of controls. But.