Foreign Money in US Elections? Inside the Growing Fundraising Scandal

0:00This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind ClawD. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Your job, your kids, where it's going. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way, because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at clod.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's clod.ai slash Spotify. For the first time ever, Yamavar Resort and Casino at Sandman Well is giving away a new Rolex watch for every club Serrano card deer. Play with your club Serrano card and on September 20th, you could be one of five winners of a Rolex watch. Plus, all winners will advance to the finale at Palm's Casino Resort Las Vegas for a chance to take home a rarity. The second Mustang Dark Horse ever produced on September 26th. Two properties. Six winners. Only at Yamavar Resort and Casino. Your California to Vegas connection. Details at Yamavar.com must be 21 or older to enter participate. Please gamble responsibly. I'm Charles Payne. I'm Emily Componio. I'm Greg Jarrett and this is the Fox News rundown.

1:05Thursday, September 3rd, 2026, I'm Jessica Brosenfall is foreign money illegally funding Democratic campaigns. Congress digs in as another top official at a major fundraising platform pleads the fifth. Why did their entire compliance team leave at blue after the 24 2024 election? Because some shady things are going on and they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and now they're running for the hills. I'm I Shahasni is screen time rewiring our kids. HHS issuing a formal warning now over the hidden dangers. We're seeing depression, anxiety and possible suicide. Plus, what are they being exposed to online is really the big concern. And I'm Joe Conschit. I've got the final word on the Fox News rundown. The Committee on House Administration first began investigating Act Blue in 2023.

2:06Over concerns, the platform might have been accepting donations and violation of federal election law, allowing foreign contributions for political campaigns and candidates. Then, a New York Times report revealed a law firm working with Act Blue told the organization their chief executive, Regina Wallace-Jones, may have misled lawmakers about how they vet donations to ensure they're not from foreign sources. She had said they conducted multi-layered screenings, but the law firm concluded that might not be the case, writing this presents a substantial risk to Act Blue. The organization serves as a fundraising platform for various Democratic causes, campaigns and candidates. Earlier this summer, at a congressional hearing, Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan was among many to question Wallace-Jones. Your board chairman said, Act Blue accepted up to 38 million contributions in 2024 that had the signs of foreign origin. How much fraud is too much fraud? On the advice of council, I respectfully decline to answer the question, pursuant to my Fifth Amendment rights under the Constitution.

3:10This was her answer for repeated questions. An Act Blue co-founder pleaded the Fifth during his closed-door deposition in August, and this week sources told Fox News another Act Blue board member Kimberly Peerler Allen also plead the Fifth during her hearing. Fox News correspondent Mark Meredith tried to talk to her in the halls of Congress as she left her interview. What did you have a chance to say to the committee today? Sorry, I already got it on her way. Oh, don't worry, I'm on it with you. What would you have a chance to say to the committee? So where's the investigation going as those called before lawmakers refused to talk? Well, clearly that Act Blue had become a Monday laundering operation for the Democratic Party, and that's very unfortunate. Texas Republican Congressman Pat Fallon. Their compliance and fraud prevention was severely lacking, and they actually were training their employees to do almost no verifications. And so, for instance, if somebody used PayPal, their software didn't even vet that at all, and they found internal internally we've seen that they found instances scores and instances where foreign money was actually accepted.

4:13And that's a major nodio. That's a violation of federal law, and people can, you know, there's criminal penalties to be had. And if they were on the up and up, then why is everyone that used to work for Act Blue taking the Fifth Amendment? Also, why did their entire compliance team leave Act Blue after the 2024 election? I'm talking everybody, because some shady things were going on, and they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and now they're running for the hills. Tell us why such a big part of this is the acceptance of donations from credit cards while not requiring that CVC or CVV number. Is that a big red flag that donations weren't necessarily from the people that they said they were from? Huge red flag, because then you're accepting donations from somebody they say they're so, you know, they're A, and they're actually person B. That's why we all go through that when we make purchase online. I can't remember the last time they didn't require me to give that three digit number on the back of my credit card, and yet Act Blue wasn't doing that or enforcing it. It is really one of those things that make you go, hmm, and, you know, now we know why is because they were, they just wanted to get money in the door, and they really didn't have much of a concern as to where it was coming from.

5:22When federal law clearly states that United States citizens and only United States citizens can donate to campaigns. What do you all suspect here? Like how much money do you think may have flowed toward Democratic campaigns or candidates from foreign organizations or individuals? I've heard a few numbers, but they might pertain to a specific year. Is there an estimate? It's into the millions. It's hard to say right now. It's vast, and it's definitely game changing. You can see it in their reflected and their fundraising numbers now. They're far down from where they were in previous election cycles. And again, that's one of those. Why would it be the case if it weren't for the fact that yes, they were not doing things the right way, you know, previously? If everyone's pleading the fifth, it sounds like three so far. What happens now? If Congress keeps running into a wall, is there another investigation that should happen or is happening regarding this? If Congress can't get the answers they want or need? Yeah, there's three committees of jurisdiction. And what you need to do, what we do on the oversight committee is we go where the evidence leads us.

6:27And that's the best way to do an investigation. And you continue to try and find as much as you can. I mean, under when Joe Biden was president, the oversight committee found lots of very interesting things that should have been vetted and then prosecuted by the Department of Justice, but the Biden Department of Justice wouldn't do it. One of the people of course was by or by and he gave him a blanket part. So we couldn't pursue that moving forward. But so that's what we're focused on doing. Chairman, co-hosted an excellent job and we're going to continue to do that. But there's no other outside investigation that you that you know of. This is up to Congress to sort of figure out there's no like other law enforcement or prosecutor agency looking into this. I would welcome them to do so. I would welcome the FBI and any other federal entity that thinks that they have jurisdiction. They should look into it because really the more eyes you have on something like this, the quicker you get to the truth. Well, right now we're talking about fundraising. Everyone is raising money right now or maybe most of it has has wrapped up from it terms. What do you think Republicans need to do over these next couple of months? Or are voters minds for the most part made up by September?

7:35Most I'll say this and it's a great question. Most voters minds are already made up. However, for those small that small percentage that's not they're going to make the difference in a lot of these races. We've got about 21 house seats that will determine who's in the majority moving forward and what the Democrats have decided to do is say you know we're going to make affordability. The issue which I find rather ironic considering that they were the ones that created the affordability crisis in the first place by spending literally trillions of dollars that we didn't have while Joe Biden was president using COVID as an excuse if you remember the inflation rate got to 9 nearly 9% when Joe Biden was president. It's nowhere near that now. It's a fraction of that and we'd be in a better spot if we weren't in a conflict with Iran that frankly was necessary considering they were about and they were on the precipice of being nuclear armed. And do we have to remind folks that this is a binary choice and the party that is going to be more fiscal responsible and by the way Republicans have a long way to go and do where I want us to be.

8:38I want us to work towards a balanced budget in the next 7 to 12 years. I want us to reduce the debt to GP ratio and not act as if money falls from the sky. But we're far better at it than the Democrats are who don't even want to have a discussion on how to fix social security or how to balance a budget. But on that affordability issue how do Republicans combat concerns over tariffs previously and currently gas prices because it does seem like if you believe the polls the Trump administration is getting a bulk of the blame especially for gas prices. Yeah, because people go to the pump and gas is higher than it was and president Trump is in office. What they don't realize is you know what both bushes both Clintons Biden Harris and president drop out in common they also they would not allow Iran to go nuclear and he's the one on his watch that had to take action and there was a consequence for that. But he's also cut in great deal with Venezuela who has higher oil reserves I believe than even Saudi Arabia. So I think the price at the pump the election is not today where early September the election will be in two months.

9:40I do believe personally that gas prices will go down and there are other commodities and things that have gone down and I do think that gas will be under control but you have to also remind them that he did something to that was really critical and crucial for national security. So history tells us the party in power at this point is likely to lose the majority in the house but there's a lot of talk about the possibility the GOP loses the Senate as well after these midterms. What would that mean for the next two years for Republicans and president Trump's agenda is there anything you see getting done in that scenario? Unfortunately the way the left is taken a left turn you know it's like left turn after left turn after left turn like a NASCAR race you know the the DSA and there's I think now maybe 38 candidates that would be by any fair definition described as hard or very far left. Now it doesn't I don't know how many of them will one general elections but it's not likely and now into your first point the house we might hold the house we might defy gravity because it is a different environment it's not an easy one it's certainly difficult but we can defy it there's nobody voting in an elections in September.

10:51Number one number two there's really about 21 house seats that are going to determine the majority and I believe the word about 209 so of those seats you know we need to win about a third of them and we will maintain the majority so when you see those polls of generically Democrats are plus five or six over Republicans. This isn't going to be decided generically across the board it's going to be decided in those 21 districts and candidates matter in those 21 districts so there's going to be very few I'd say a couple of hundred thousand people voting that will determine the direction that's the house now in the Senate Republicans certainly have an easier path to hold the majority and it's going to be German they just mumbled the ball I think the Democrats gave away Michigan because that not that they nominated is literally an over the round Neptune he is crazy he's an America hater. He's down in the polls and I don't think that's going to improve so that was a gift that'll be a flip towards us so I'm every confidence that the Republicans will all decide it when it's all said and done. Yeah to your point it could be a very different vibe though in January with at least a few new members of Congress who are Democratic Socialists from New York maybe Colorado Michigan Pennsylvania what do you anticipate are you going to be you know eating popcorn watching the other side or is this going to really impact every day.

12:09Really impacts everything and everyone. Definitely impact us all when you have people that serve in the United States Congress that don't believe in their heart of hearts that the United States of America is an on balance a force of good in the world. They don't believe that where the greatest country history is ever known though that's a problematic thing those are adversaries from within and it's not healthy because it also has an effect I saw it with some of the squad if you will on the oversight committee in 2021 when the Republicans were in the minority that you had like moderate chairs. That were being influenced and afraid that the AOC's of the world we're going to come after them with their allies and Democratic primaries so they were really affecting their priorities in their agenda and moving it hard to the left and that's not good for America. We're moving forward either so I think we're going to probably unfortunately see more that or at least the rhetoric will get even hotter. Finally tell us about the House Oversight Committee what you hope to achieve there next Congress. While running for the chair of the Oversight Committee Jamie Cromers and a fantastic job over the last six years I've been on the committee for the full six years he was a ranking member in chair but he's term limited out and he's fully supporting our run and we need to continue to expose the fraud waste and abuse at the federal level that is costing American taxpayers not even into the hundreds of billions but into the trillions of dollars.

13:27We have to take that very seriously we have to look at countries like China and particularly gutter as well they're using their soft power and using billions of dollars of soft power money over the last several decades to influence not just American but Western institutions of higher learning they've indoctrinated so many of our young minds and poison them in my humble opinion we need to look at that we need to continue to look at act blue and also free honest and open elections you know and voter ID things like that they work and they're good in their healthy. For the country so we need to be remain ever vigilant got forbidden going to the minority we're going to see investigations like you've never seen before we're going to see law fair we're going to see impeachment proceedings take place amongst President Trump's cabinet that probably try to impeach him again his family members I mean no one will be safe if the Democrats get the gap on oversight. Texas Republican Congressman Pat Fal and thank you so much for joining us thank you take care of us.

14:32This podcast is supported by Anthropic the public benefit corporation behind Claude everyone's got a hard question about AI your job your kids where it's going. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way because there's hope in hard questions ask yours at clod.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking that's clod.ai slash Spotify. This is Joe Concha with your Fox News commentary coming up. Everywhere you look these days you see a cell phone laptop a tablet screens are part of our daily lives but what is it doing to our kids excessive screen time is now at the center of a brand new advisory from the health and human services agency.

15:37Earlier this week secretary Robert F Kennedy junior highlighted efforts to reduce harmful screen use among young people our messages simple American children need less screen time and more real life the Mahas strategy identified excessive screen use physical in activity sleep deprivation chronic stress as threats to the health of American children. The agency warning that screen over use could be a major driver of the national youth health crisis a video call with grandma grandpa is much different from hours of doom scrolling. So the office of the surgeon general is sounding the alarm warning that some apps out there video games AI chat bots and algorithms could actually foster addiction like behaviors and kids. So the question this leaves us where should parents draw the line we released the advisory in May and it has gotten a lot of coverage because I think it touched the heart of so many people.

16:42Dr Stephanie Herodopoulos is the director of national health communications and principal deputy assistant secretary for health at HHS we describe the domain. The four areas physical harm cognitive emotional behavior and academic and so the last general talked about social media and mental health but we said you know we need to pull it out we know a lot more of the past few years research. Well cited advisory that you can find on surgeon general dot gov. So let's talk about the harms because you know we remember what happened during covid and we know how covid harmed our kids they were so isolated. We see the way that you know certain generation lacks social skills. What kind of what is the evidence pointed towards in terms of actual harm to kids what kind of harm are you seeing. There's a window of opportunity to develop those social skills in young ages and so what we are seeing from the research is that that has been thwarted because kids are either not interacting because they are so much online and then they don't have the social skills so they don't feel comfortable with interpersonal relationships and then start looking for that connection with perhaps maybe even AI.

18:08A chatbot so who not sure which way was the causation of it but you know that causes major mental health issues that we're seeing depression anxiety and possible suicide plus what are they being exposed to online is really the big concern that we brought up in this advisory. I think that was kind of part of the meta lawsuit right and meta just settled and is going to make some changes going to pay up a lot of money not everybody is a fan staff because the changes like the daily limits that they're going to put in place now for younger people only last a number of years. What's HHS's take on the meta settlement. You know we had this symposium at HHS we had three round tables we had researchers some policy makers some physicians as well as advocates and educators but we also had some tech companies that came and talked meta was one of them and they talked about what they plan to do in the future and.

19:21You know I think it's a great step in the right direction I'm happy that they have settled with the 52 attorney generals in the United States that had the class action lawsuit you know that hopefully that money will be used wisely by the states to help children where they're at with mental health I know that they're still figuring that out whatever restrictions listen parents need the help to. Empower them with it should be on the onus of the tech companies to do the right thing on the front end so parents can have that more control. You know your mom although your kids are a little bit older but I am not a mom yet and I am really worried and frightened I think to have kids now in this world because it is so hard. They want to be connected everybody has a cell phone or a tablet or a device of some sort I see it with my nephew's and my niece you know sometimes they're on it for hours maybe they shouldn't be.

20:31But you said you know parents had been told to monitor the screens the screen usage the put in limits and that's really great advice but it's incomplete you said so what tools would you give parents and if you had you know younger kids today how would you. Letting them use screen time and how would you be kind of watching over that well first of all we put the five D's into the certain general dot of. Where you can find the what on the website the five D's the toolkit for parents is discussing media plan right so everyone's on the same page this is for obviously the adolescents and kids that the very young I think that you need to delay and. Delay any screen use for as long as possible because the interactive screens can affect the brain development with memory attention and academics the ability for literacy so those have been some some other way to keep them busy.

21:35When you get your stuff down at home delay their car yeah they're in and in from there's a national institute of health division called Shriver National Institute of Children's Health and Development they have ongoing studies right now with their behavioral health analysis and they say that if you the later you give a one-on-one tablet the better you have less tantrums when you try to. Take it away and if you give them a book you're going to have less of a tantrum when you take away a book for instance so there's a lot of evidence that you know feel confident in your parenting even if you've already given a tablet and you feel like you don't have the power to take away you do and it will take maybe a couple weeks of them having a little detox off of it but then eventually if you divert them to fun things like arts and crafts. Or a sport or doing something fun outside or doing something together like learning how to cook a meal those kids will be happy off of the screens eventually it's just I worry when I see people at restaurants and they just have with a two or three-year-old tablet so close to their eyes and they're zoned out and they're not learning or listening to what we're saying that's a problem and it can cause some problems.

23:03So there's a lot of myopia which is near sightedness because the screen is too close and you're not giving your eyes a break so there are things you could do make sure that your children go outdoors one to two hours a day to get sunlight in their eyes that they are taking breaks from screens when it's later on if they're doing homework that they should look 20 feet away at least for 20 seconds every 20 minutes the 2020 rule. That's for adults to look everyone should be doing that. Go outside touch grass being the real like most of the joy in my life doesn't come from swiping or liking or getting a notification it's being in the moment with the human being in front of you and enjoying friends and family dancing exercising being in the real life in nature outside and I can't express that enough secretary Kennedy has talked to me. I'm just going to talk about this relentlessly how he feels that we are missing out and screens are crowding out normal activities in our life.

24:10And I'm cracking up a little bit because number one you nailed it. I mean adults are you know we're victims too. I so many times of the day I'm caught you know doom scrolling but I'm also laughing because you know my dad so grandpa to my nephews you know is always on them about you know you got to limit your screen time because he's worried they're going to get glasses or going to you know they're going to miss out on their childhood. And now I get to take a clip of this show it to him because he's right and he can show that to my nephews. I just want to go on surgeon general dot com and reading. Yeah. His grandkids and believe it. I think this is a conversation it's not going to go away for a very long time you know Congress has been very slow in dealing with the effects of social media and it's nice to see an agency sort of giving some attention to this because everyone is dealing with this every single day.

25:13Everywhere you look everybody's glued to a screen and you know states are leading on this right now with over 40 states that have some form of limiting access to cell phones during school or banning it all together. So this is just the beginning of the conversation and there will be action items that come out of that but one of the action items that we did. And now it was the magic tablet and this is a children's book that us yes that you can reach your kid get off screens get on a book. You can download it though. And we thought it was so fun because little Eleanor wanted to be a content creator but her parents went letter have a tablet so she figured out that the magic light inside of her with creativity and all the adventures she had because she wasn't given her tablet with her and her little brother. It was just really neat sometimes the greatest adventures begin when you put this screen down look up and live real life and so I encourage everyone to read this to the children the magic tablet there's lessons for parents and their two.

26:27We have the magic school bus and now they have a magic tablet. Thank you so much it was so great to see you doctor Stephanie or Adopolis appreciate it. Oh pleasure was online. This podcast is supported by anthropic the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI your job your kids where it's going and the topic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at clod.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking that's clod.ai slash Spotify. Precise personal powerful is America's weather team in the palm of your hands get Fox weather updates throughout your busy day every day subscribe and listen now at Fox News Podcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

27:33Subscribe to this podcast at Fox News Podcasts.com. It's time for your Fox News commentary Joe Concha. What's on your mind? Well a OC is single and ready to mingle but would she ever date a conservative? Hi everyone I'm Joe Concha so a OC Alexandria Casseco Cortez told TMZ on Tuesday if she would or would not ever date somebody from across the aisle. Would you ever date a conservative? Is that anything you'd ever been to? I have to say it's probably not. Alright let's be very clear about this. AOC will be pulled side with MTG, Marjorie Taylor Greene at Mar-a-Lago before you ever see her dating any Republican. But I think the question should be would any Republican ever consider dating a OC?

28:35Would you imagine how that date would go? So how are those frozen eggs coming along? Or hey since she once said that the world was going to end because a climate change in 2031 like five years from now do you really think we should go ahead with a big wedding? Personally I think the ultimate power couple would be AOC and Hassan Piker both single. Both agreeing that they would never take their honeymoon in Israel which they'd love to see you know not exist. Both also love to talk about themselves in weird social media videos. The commonalities are endless. So Alexandria or Casseco Cortez. It's not exactly Jacqueline Schlossberg, Kennedy, O'Nassus but in 2026 we'll take it. I'm Joe Concha. You've been listening to The Fox News rundown and now stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at FoxNewsPodcasts.com. Listen to Add Free on Fox News Podcasts plus on Apple Podcasts and Prime Members can listen to the show Add Free on Amazon Music.

29:37And for up to the minute news go to FoxNews.com. You'll see one of five winners of a Rolex watch plus all winners will advance to the finale at Palm's Casino Resort Las Vegas for a chance to take home a rarity. The second Mustang Dark Horse ever produced on September 26th. Two properties, six winners only at Yamavar Resort and Casino. Your California to Vegas connection details at Yamavar.com must be 21 or older to enter participate. Please gamble responsibly.