How Medicaid Fraud Is Draining America (and No One Stops It) | 3/18/26

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Politics without the soap opera with unfiltered constitutional conservative truth.

The conservative review with Daniel Brooks. And welcome back fellow American patriots and

Minutemen standing at the ready to fight a new for the issues that matter today on this cold

Wednesday. It might feel like spring in some places, but not where I am. Anyway,

your host Daniel Hurwitz back here to discuss affordability, welfare fraud, health care,

and how to finally ensure that we stop flushing as much as almost a trillion dollars

in a given year or two into the toilet on fraudulent welfare programs. Here's the deal.

We just crossed 39 trillion in debt. That's 2.8 trillion just in 14 months since Trump's inauguration.

I'm sorry, that's that's the fact. Okay, if you have an affordability crisis and you print

another 2.8 trillion in 14 months, it's going to get worse, not better. And indeed, today's PPI

numbers wholesale inflation. It was up for the fourth month in a row, 3.4% year-over-year jump.

But it's really a lot worse than that, 3.9% core. So imagine, we're talking about a 4% clip on top

of the existing mountain of inflation that we've had. And by the way, these numbers did not factor

in the Iran War, the spike in oil. That was not factored in yet. We'll see that next time.

So the point is, we can't just ignore the debt. Oh, well, no one wants to deal with welfare,

health care, no one wants to do. It's going to be dealt with. We cannot afford living. Here's

the good news. The Somali fraud scandal has given us an amazing talking point and foray into

this issue, if we will actually use it. To show the public that you want to know why you are,

you can't afford health care, you can't afford anything because we have these open-ended

entitlements that we just throw money at the states. The feds print the money. The states are

the steward, but they have no incentive to deal with the fraud because they're not paying for it.

Okay, they're not paying for it. So then that's why you have inflation. And that's why we need

to close the open-ended entitlement nature of these programs. But to do that, you have to move

beyond a talking point. The problem with the right in America is that they pursue talking points

for the sake of talking points. In other words, the talking point is the point, rather than a means,

a hammer driving towards an anvil of a policy outcome. Okay, so we have a bunch of fraud.

What you're going to run on that in some campaign ad? Fine, you could do that. But what is it

you're going to do to deal with Medicaid and food stamps and that just endless, endless litany

of these government programs that are just open-ended entitlements that are not just

fraudulent in terms of wasting money, but they're literally causing us to print and create an

affordability crisis. That is the central message that if the GOP or really we need a new party

would want to win back voters, win suburban voters, that should be the message.

Now, we're going to have on in a couple of moments, Cindy Bird. We had her on about a year ago.

She is the state auditor of Oklahoma. She was doge before doge. She was uncovering

waste and fraud in these programs before it was cool. Now she's running for lieutenant governor,

which is an important position because you're the president of the Senate. Not all states are

like that, but in Oklahoma's important position, she is everything you and I are looking for.

But there's no fanfare. I don't even know if she's on Twitter. If she is, she barely uses it.

She just puts her head down. She's a nerdy accountant. But you know what? She does everything

everyone says they want to do with fiscal sanity. So I'm really looking forward to that. But again,

I just want you guys to understand the magnitude of what we flush with these programs. You can't just

say, oh, I'm not going to touch it. Okay. We need to make it clear to people. And now we have a

vivid example of the Somali fraud that's like, look, you could even have these programs so that

people actually need them. But if you want to preserve them for the people who need them,

you have to deal with the eligibility verification and things like that and not make it an open-ended

entitlement. And you have to have some degree of cost sharing to put this in perspective.

The first week of the Iran war cost about $11 billion. Now that in itself is an entire issue to

discuss that, you know, we seem to be reliant on a defense establishment that uses very expensive

weapons to blow up very cheap things. This is a known problem. Other people are talking about,

but putting that aside, this is a big deal. Big war, $11 billion. But that same week,

we spent $32 billion on Medicare and Medicaid, which is just a dumpster fire. And you only need it

because it's there. And it gives the insurance companies market share from government-printed

dollars so that now if you try to, you know, try, let's say Medicare, you try being a senior

and affording health care with that, you can't. Because now they can charge you a fortune because

they already, they don't need to earn your business because they have the business from the printing

press. But if we wouldn't have it, if we don't make the money available, if the money ain't there,

they can't charge it. This is the simple point. But instead, it's just endless. Oh, autism

diagnosis, whatever you want. So I want to get to that and really focus on that with Cindy talking

about a little bit about Oklahoma, the war on land, because it's state auditors she dealt with

that as well. But I just want to first get to last night's election results.

Every Tuesday, there seems to be somewhat of an election. Most of the primaries are going to take

place in May. April doesn't really have any. So we'll take a little break from this. But you,

you do have these special elections. There were three special legislative elections

to an Pennsylvania for legislature and one for Virginia. And then the Illinois regular primaries.

So there were three solid Republican legislative seats that were up for reelection. The person died

in office or whatever. In two out of the three Republicans continued this trend of underperforming.

Now, I just want to say from the get go that when you're assessing the value, the predictive value

of special elections and predicting the results of a major general election. So obviously,

the most telling ones are the ones that are fought very contested very hard because then they're not

these sleeper anomalous races. So like a purple district. When you have extreme blue and extreme red,

usually the other side just seeds it like you're going to get it anyway. So I'm not going to

invest anything. So in a in a off year special election scenario, there's an exaggerated effect

towards blue being blue and red being redder because if you're the opposing minority voter in

that district, you really have nothing to turn out for. Whereas maybe in a general election. So for

example, let's say you have a certain area where it's 70% conservative and 30% liberal. You know,

you're going to lose. So if there's a bunch of other things to vote for, you'll turn out. So then

you'll be 70 30. But then if it's only one special legislative seat, a lot of them will turn out

and it will wind up being 80 20 for the Republican and vice versa in a deep blue district.

So for two out of the three very red districts to have gone more blue is the problem. Republicans

held all three, but the two Pennsylvania ones they underperformed. Pennsylvania HD 79 Trump won it by

33. The Republican won it by just 15. Okay. There was another district PA 193 Trump won it by 38.

The Republican candidate for legislature won it by just 20. So basically very consistent 18 point

under performance. Now I do have to say on the other side of it, the Virginia House of Delegates

district 98, the GOP overperformed by 10. So the underperformed two by 18 one overperformed by 10

from plus 15 to plus 25. And that's good. But again, on net, it's still this bad news. Why was

Virginia different? I don't know really. It's hard to just read into one heavy or district that

wasn't really contested. Some posit that Republicans are more fired up from, I guess, the redistricting

fight. I got a message from someone else in the district that it was a really good candidate

and it was homegrown and doorknocking and had a good ground game. So maybe that is certainly

something that always works that you do need inspiring candidates that do have a ground game.

But the point is broadly speaking, the trend is continuing. And again, for that trend,

you get what I'm saying to be in red, deep red districts is actually disturbing even more so

than anywhere else. And that shows you all the more so you're going to have an even more exaggerated

effect in a lighter red and certainly a purple district. So this is all to say that we need

candidates with a narrative on affordability, a narrative on fraud and welfare and that I want

to give you a society where you can get a job afforded with your paycheck to buy things on your

own. You want a paycheck, you want affordability, you don't want to hand out. You want prohumanism,

not transhumanism. You want real American life and productivity, not an ultra processed

fake tokenized, digitalized life like you're a cognitive system just being surveilled by the

surveillance state. These are the sorts of issues that are going to drive new candidates. And I

got to say going to Illinois, one more observation on last night's election,

there were Illinois elections. Now, I know Illinois doesn't matter because Republicans are

hopelessly in the minority, but it does portend potential for red states. There is an Illinois

freedom caucus. They ran a candidate against the GOP deputy minority leader Noreen Hammond

was there for a number of years like 15 years. She always sides with the Democrats. They spent

700,000 protecting her from a freedom caucus challenge. And the freedom caucus person actually

unceded her. And it wasn't even close. It might have been like a 15 point gap.

So again, imagine if we had more money and focus behind freedom caucus candidates. Imagine

a TPUSA and all these loud nows and all these people with the money and the cloud and everything

and the podcasting bros and the Mar-a-Lago bros would work. It's not like we have, we don't have

proof of concept. Well, Daniel, it's the lesser of two evils. This is what it is. It's gay or

retarded. It's grraper or, you know, special engine. No, actually, we have proof of concept.

Actually, we have people. We have people all the time and, you know, like our next guest,

we have smart, godly people, not enough of them. But if we actually incentivize them by people

seeing their elected more normal people would then run for office. Why am I the only one focused

on these sorts of primaries? Because again, in terms of general elections, in terms of Congress,

that is done. Okay, it's a question of do you underperform by 10, 12, 15 or 18? That's really the

question at this point. But I will note that it's not just a matter of the primaries. It's a matter

of if you elect people that have a new message that appeals to people, then you might be able to

push back that scrimmage line, maybe rather than, you know, Democrat overperformance by 15, maybe

only by eight. And that will make a big difference. I'm not going to sit and sell you a bill of goods

here and say, well, you know, you run my type of candidates and you'll win the election out,

right? No, I mean, that's just not in the cards for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is

that once you have the Republican brand, you're completely tainted, which is why we all not have it.

But as you guys well, no, I don't tilt that windmills. I actually try to deal with the world as

we have it in the most realistic scenarios. So with that, I do want to get to our guest and get

back to welfare fraud and had it rooted out. So folks, I promise you, we will never live a prosperous

and affordable life unless we end the inflationary debt. That is a fact. And we're not going to end

the inflationary debt until we deal with the welfare health care programs, open ended entitlements.

Here's the good news, the fraud that has been unearthed and all the public is now aware of what we

saw in Minneapolis with the Somali community. That is a glimpse into what's really happening

everywhere. By the way, in red states, because again, it's a symptom.

Okay, it is a symptom and it's a feature, not a bug of an open ended entitlement system.

It gives conservatives a great talking point. But again, the point is not just the talking point,

it's to actually do something about it and to actually slim down these programs just for those

who need them. So everyone could actually afford life and we don't have all this fraud.

There actually is someone who did this before it was cool, who did this. And really, I would argue

the federal task force should work with her on this state auditor and inspector of Oklahoma,

Cindy Birch, who was with us about a year ago. She's been in office in the office of auditor for

30 years, eventually becoming deputy. And then now having been elected auditor, two terms having

garnered the most votes in the Republican primary that year in the Republican general election,

she has exposed waste fraud and wokeness in red state government before it was cool Medicaid

education. So if you're wondering what this task force that the vice president is in charge of

ought to be doing, she is your person and she is running for lieutenant governor, which is president

of the Oklahoma Senate. Cindy Birch dot com is where to check her out and she's with us in person.

Cindy, thanks so much for joining us at the blaze today. Hey, it's great to be with you, Daniel.

Alrighty, so there is so much to talk about. Let's jump right into it. When you look at the

federal government, finally, using the blue state fraud as a catalyst to really go after fraud in

Medicaid and these welfare programs of which there's really over 70. I just want to understand

the scope of the problem. This is not just Minneapolis. Isn't it true that when you have the

federal government with a printing press and the state without a printing press and has to balance

its budget, but it's the steward of a lot of these programs. Well, they're like, okay, we'll just

keep the money flowing because we don't have to pay for it. And then it winds up being a 50 state

problem. That's absolutely true. And the state, the only way we're going to clean up this problem is

for the states to clean up their own wasteful spending billions, poor through state governments

every year for these entitlement programs. And it is up to the states to clean up their houses

so that we can help this debt be reduced and relieve some of the burden on our taxpayers.

So that's a really good point because obviously right now we're at a log gem. Everyone's saying

we don't have the votes, the filibuster, they can't even pass, you know, citizen ship verification

to vote. So clearly, they they're not cutting spending. They're just not doing it. They're

not doing it. They're going to try executively maybe with this task force like they do with

doge, but then failed. I don't know. But you're making the interesting case that it's not just a

matter of running state governments better, but you could actually help the national affordability

crisis because a lot of the federal programs are funneled through the states, describe some of what

you have seen, not just in Minneapolis, but in Ruby Red Oklahoma in terms of just utter waste in

some of these federal programs. Well, for one thing, whenever we received the billions in COVID

funds, there was never a thought even in our red state to only use what we absolutely needed

to help our citizens. It was a grab and spin type of a situation and we found that, you know,

millions had been misappropriated. I like to tell people that we found the daycare issues here

in Oklahoma before Nick Shirley broke his in Minnesota. And what we found here was gross

abuse of how the daycare funds were put out to daycares. We found that some daycares were awarded

subsidies that they never qualified for, causing them to become dependent upon those funds.

At a point to where now that they've been drawn back, many of these daycares are saying they're

going to have to close their doors. Even some of the grants that were given out, there were no

guardrails put in place. Some people used them for lavish home remodels, one person paid off a

Cadillac. And whenever we took this back to the federal government, their response was because

our agency didn't put guardrails on these programs, there was nothing they could do about this gross

abuse and waste of taxpayer money. So one of the interesting examples and I want to see if you've

seen this where you are in Oklahoma, the Wall Street Journal had a great expose last week

on the specific cottage industry of autism treatment centers using the Medicaid program

to just build the system. They focused on Indiana and found that some vendors were using

345,000 per child. Are you seeing this with some of these autism centers?

We have not audited anything like that here in Oklahoma at this time, but that doesn't surprise me

because there aren't enough guardrails on Medicaid to curb that spending. In fact, just this year,

in our red state, I want to add, the agency in charge of handing out the Medicaid payments

ask for another half a billion dollars at a time when our state's starting to see a retraction.

This is a problem. Medicaid is not going to go away. We have got to get our hands on this and get

this curtailed or we're going to have to have some very serious conversations about how we're going

to go forward as a state. So what have you found in terms of Medicaid? We now have, gosh, I remember

writing press releases for candidates during the Tea Party in 2010 about, oh my gosh, there's 50

million people on Medicaid. And now, what is it? 75 or something when you include Medicaid and chip?

It's endless, endless number of people on Medicaid.

We, so you didn't hear me say this, but the first week of the Iran War cost 11 billion dollars.

And the point I made is that Medicare and Medicaid during that same week were both 32 billion dollars.

We're talking about a big war here. So CMS every year puts out reports on the fraud rate.

This is your bread and butter and I want to get to this. They estimate for Medicaid that there's

an improper payment rate of about 6.12%, that's almost 38 billion dollars.

Where is that going and why is it there?

Well, it could be over payments. It could be fraud. In Oklahoma, one in four,

Oklahoma's are on the Medicaid program, which is a huge number, a very serious liability for this

state and we don't see that turning around. Medicaid, just like any other entitlement program,

the way to curtail these expenses is to make sure that only those who are eligible for these

programs are truly enrolled. And one of the things we reported back in 2020, we didn't have all

the tools in our toolbox to really prove eligibility. For instance, the federal government wants us

to audit eligibility, yet they don't give us the tools needed. One of our greatest obstacles in

proving eligibility here in Oklahoma is trying to prove income for self-employed, for federal workers,

or for even out of state workers. And until we have all the pieces of the puzzle, we will never

be able to absolutely guarantee that only those eligible are truly receiving those benefits

as taxpayers are watching these costs increase every year significantly.

So that's an earth shattering point that I think needs to be shared with this federal task force.

I wish you'd be on it because there's a lot of focus on the overt fraud and what you saw

systemically, culturally, in Minneapolis. But I remember reading the CMS report and it's literally

what you found that 77% of the improper Medicaid payments in their estimation was due to insufficient

documentation where we don't even know if they're eligible. That's the crux of this. Everyone

saying we need a safety net. So from what you did find, because you're saying you don't even have

the tools, did you find reason to suspect that there are a lot of people that shouldn't be eligible

that are on it? Well, in our report, and when we issued it at the time, we were the first state

in the nation to be able to do this audit because we did have access to the state income tax records

where we could back into some of the numbers to try to prove eligibility. At the time, Oklahoma was

spending around five billion total in state and federal funding on Medicaid and what we found

was a projected $1.6 billion had been paid out that year on behalf of recipients whose eligibility

had never fully been verified. And let's just talk about Medicaid in general. I'm part of the

State Financial Officers Foundation. I think they're doing a great job in bringing transparency

to all issues. But just recently, we're starting to talk about the health care price transparency.

That's where we're going to start. Being able to truly, you know, bring awareness to this and try

to start having the conversations about bringing price costs or health care costs down to where normal

people like you and I, Daniel, can afford it. So that's where I want to take this conversation

because Medicaid is really the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I would say even more than food stamps

in that the reason why we have high food prices is the general inflation, the general spending,

which I guess does come back around to these programs creating the debt, the money printing,

whatever. But with Medicaid, there's an extra layer that I feel like if I'm an insurance company

and government prints, so government has printed what about 2.8 trillion in the last 14 months.

So a good chunk of that is health care spending. That's the largest single chunk.

If I know that I get an automatic endless spigot from Medicare and Medicaid and I could just

charge it whatever I want. So then if you are not on Medicare and Medicaid, you don't have

the leverage against me because I already have market share. I don't need to earn a profit because

I get the profit. So now I could charge you money you don't have and you're kind of screwed.

So I know you're running for lieutenant governor now and you know, you had this frustration.

You came out with all these reports and everyone's like, yeah, all this fraud Cindy exposed,

but then they don't do anything about it in the legislature. So now you're like, all right,

well, we need to deal with it in the legislations. You're running for lieutenant governor.

But don't we need to not just again, we need the documentation of eligibility.

But do you agree with the proposition that when it comes to Medicaid, you might want a safety net

so that people that aren't wealthy and maybe even poor don't have to potentially pay hundreds of

thousands of dollars if something happens to them medically that year. But I am finding in most

states, they don't have to pay a dime like not a copay, no co insurance, nothing, nothing on the

premium, nothing on anything. So A isn't that unfair and B doesn't that encourage this overutilization

and fraud. Well, of course, it's unfair, Daniel. If you have skin in the game, you're going to take

care of something. And what we're seeing right now is whenever government puts its thumb on the

scale and subsidizes anything, regardless of which industry you're talking about, prices go up,

Obamacare, and you know, it created a subsidized health insurance marketplace. And for many Americans

that resulted in higher premiums and restricted choices. The only way we're going to get these

costs down is by is for patient choice. That's it. That's what we need. That's going to be the

solution to a lot of these healthcare situations. Patients need to be able to choose any doctor they

want. There needs to be a free market for healthcare. You know, I think that a lot of some

light on this issue, really understanding what the prices are and letting the average person know

this is not complex. This is basic, getting to know what the prices are, putting some competition

out here, getting the best product for the best price. It's what we love about free market capitalism.

And that's what we need in healthcare. But what we have is not free market capitalism. We have

venture socialism. So it's worse than plain socialism because it's funneled through these third

party vendors. And that's whether it's the daycare centers, the autism centers or the insurance

companies government through printed money is giving them an unnatural market share. And I think

that's what people need to understand. When you look at 345,000 per child at an autism center,

that's part and parcel of why you're paying more. And why they don't have to earn your

business in a competitive way because of all these cottage industries. So Cindy, and I know,

look, as Lieutenant Governor, you could deal with the state, how it deals with the structure of

the program. But ultimately, the federal representatives we send, isn't this why as many of these

programs as possible need to be devolved to the state's completely where they have the flexibility

and ability to change it, but where they're also on the hook to pay for it. And they have to balance

their budget. They don't have a printing press.

Daniel, first, yeah. Okay, I didn't hear that last part. Can you repeat that last part?

Sure. The main punchline here is that you need to put, don't you need to put the authority

and responsibility of the program in the type of government that has the responsibility and

doesn't have a printing press. So they're forced to balance.

Yes. And this is one of the things that I'm telling people out here, as I'm campaigning for

Lieutenant Governor, you know, Oklahoma still is small enough.

We have a lot of great people here. I know that if we were given that money back in a block grant,

I think there would be enough smart people here in Oklahoma who would want to really prioritize

patient choice. Patient choice is where we are going to let them choose their own doctor.

We're going to let them have price transparency. That's going to lead to better outcomes at the

beginning, rather than going through the current system we have in place that results in denial

and delays and really doesn't get people to help early enough when they need it and our outcomes

in Oklahoma are very, very poor. Again, you cannot ignore healthcare Medicaid. I know Republicans,

a lot of them, they don't want to talk about it. They just don't want to deal with it. And you can't,

you can't, this is the affordability crisis. So, you know, it's not a matter of like immigration,

obviously, the illegals are building this system. That's a part of this. But structurally,

these programs are venture socialism funneled through these greedy third party payers, particularly

with the case of Medicaid. Going back to just again, this endless spigot without any verification,

the COVID money. And again, Cindy, I mean, you know this, when you cannot afford your cost of living,

when according to BLS, a family of four now has to spend 80,000 a year, and this was a year old

data. It's worse than that now. That is because of that COVID money that created all this inflation.

Didn't you find that some of it was going to Afghan refugee programs?

Well, we found a lot of things, Daniel. We found that the emergency rental assistance program,

I think it ended up being close to $400 million in the state of Oklahoma. Our state agency did

not put enough safeguards on those funds. It was given to an NGO who then used it for whatever

purposes they wanted, including using it to assist relocation efforts for Afghan refugees that

did not align with what these funds were originally intended for. There was no recourse, and now our

state is on the hook to pay millions of dollars back. That's just one. I talked about the day care

issue early, but you know, I want to circle back around to this whole Medicaid issue. Back in 2019,

I joined with 14 other state auditors. It was a bipartisan effort because we saw the trajectory of

this. We knew that the state, that our states and the nation could not continue to afford to go down

this path. I've not seen a lot of cleanup, and now other states have gotten access to the same

records that I ended up being the only one who had access to that back in 2020. They are now doing

these audits. They are now showing where these costs are being, you know, just exploded because

eligibility has been, it has just been abused so much. We have the playbook out here. Why isn't

anyone listening to us? And that's, again, that's why I'm running for Lieutenant Governor.

I want this cleaned up in my conservative small state because we will be the example at the

national level. We are still small enough to get this right. We have the answers. We have the

solutions, and it is time now to enact those. You know, one other thing I'm seeing also an education.

I know you dealt with that too, because that's not that's another thing where you have the funding

funneled from the feds to the states and the counties, all these Title I programs, all these other

programs, and special education. So I remember seeing last year California had this massive

issue with fake community college signups to get a bunch of, I don't know if it was Pell grants,

but it was a higher education grants. Are you finding that in education, you're seeing a similar

vendor-bilking of the system problem that you find and Medicaid?

Well, we did. We saw that in our audit of Tulsa Public Schools. I was auditing contracts,

or my team and I were auditing contracts, where we, a half a million payment, a half a million

dollars in payments were being made, where we could not determine that the school received one

single thing for that payment. The contracts were written so vague. No one at the school could tell

us what was being received. These issues where we're not contracting were an average, I mean,

I get it if an average taxpayer that's not used to seeing language or not used to looking at

contracts might have trouble, but I am a almost 30-year government auditor looking at a contract,

trying to figure out what we received for what the taxpayer paid, and I can't find anything.

This is not an isolated situation. I reported that in another big audit of education.

Now, I don't think that all public schools are doing this, but the ones that have larger

budgets are able to get away with hiding payments for either uses that the public probably wouldn't

approve of, or to potentially benefit someone personally. Either way, it's taxpayer money.

We can't tell what it was used for. That's a problem.

And what I like about your focus is that everyone thinks, oh, it's federal funding. That's free.

Okay, let's forget about that. Wait a minute. First of all, that's digging a hole in a boat with

everyone in it. We're all suffering the inflation, but moreover, as it relates to property taxes,

so a lot of states are now having an issue with land appreciation, so you have property tax bills

that are very high, and people have to pay them for the rest of their lives. There's a big fight

in Florida now, where some of these liberal counties are blocking at the governor's proposal

to get rid of property taxes on home says, oh, the schools, the schools. And then you again,

you look at the budget, people forget they get a ton of funding from the federal government,

and where is it going? So if you want to lower property tax rates, this is a good place to look,

to put that in balance. Cindy, there's one other thing I want to get to with you that to move on

to a little slightly different direction. So if I'm going to talk about Oklahoma, I got to talk

about homegrown organic economic growth versus special interest, GDP juicing growth. Your state,

much like Indiana, which I talk about a lot, has become a doormat for wind data center projects

at a time where we have a crisis in this country of ranches and farms going at a business,

the number of acreage depleting, the number of farms going bankrupt, the number of people dying off

and not passing it on to their children, we need food. Okay, data centers are speculative. Windmills,

yeah, I kind of think we can do without, we can't do without food. You as a statewide elected official,

you're a member of the Oklahoma Commissioners of the land office. They have similar

arrangements in a lot of states where you decide on where, you know, a trust fund of land grants

co. I have seen a lot of votes come up that have been diverting this rather than really

encouraging more ranching in Oklahoma, have been encouraging, frankly, these eye sores that I

don't think should exist. And I see that you have often been the lone dissenting voice. Could

you describe some of that because I think that's part of your job and where you plan to weigh in on

this debate in the legislature as president of the Senate if you're elected lieutenant governor.

Well, as the commissioner of the land office, we've had several issues come up about

whether we're going to issue long term leases of CLO land for the purpose of wind farms or for

data centers. I am a huge local control conservative. I like those decisions made at the local

control where communities decide what is best for them. And one of the things that concern me the

most is that as we set on this board that oversees a $3 billion trust fund dedicated for education,

it was created by the enabling act at statehood, we're making decisions on land two hours from

the capital on how what's going to be used what it's going to be used for for 40 to 50 years.

You know, as someone who sees technology changing daily, I know in 40 to 50 years this may be obsolete

and that's taking up precious land that may be needed in those local communities. I too am worried

about farms and producing what we need for food that we've got to have that. And so one of the

things that I did recently, there was a vote to lease some CLO land to a data center for I think it

was a 45 year lease. And I was very torn on this. It is a sacred trust fund. We are supposed to

manage this land to get the greatest rate of return for education. That's the hat I wear on that

board. And here I am facing a decision where someone wants to give us above market rate,

paying more than what a farmer ranch lease would be and we have to make that decision. So while I'm

sitting there, you know, getting ready to have to vote, I ask one simple question. Does the local

community know what we're deciding on today? And I get that they have the ability to look at an

agenda, but an average person two hours from the capital isn't out here checking an agenda

every single day. And so I asked that question and someone said, well, it was on the agenda.

And in Oklahoma, we have an exemption where you can go into executive session to discuss economic

growth. And there is absolutely nothing required to be on the agenda to alert anyone about what

that might be. So I asked the question, was this decided in an executive session? And the person

said, yes, it was. And I said, when you came out of executive session, did you notify anybody in

the audience of what was the plan was? And they said, no. And I immediately stopped and I said,

I will not go forward on this. I will not vote on this until we go down to that city and let them

know have a town hall, let them know what this CLO is considering to happen. Well, it turns out

that was too long. People didn't like how long it took and did that center ended up not going

in down there. But it concerns me that these decisions could be made without people in a community

knowing how it's going to adversely affect them. And one of the things that I'm very fearful about

in Oklahoma is that some of these companies come into our smaller rural areas where people don't

rely heavily on general counsel to guide them through it. They get taken advantage because

they don't know how to put guardrails in place. And this is the future of our state. That's why

I've worked to bring awareness to it. I'm all about local control. I believe in property rights.

But we have got to have a vision for this state that in the long term is going to sustain its people.

And that's always going to be my focus, not just the decision today to get the most money.

And to that point, Representative Jim Shaw had a bill. I'm forgetting the bill number.

But it actually codified all of their talking points. We'll pay for our own energy.

All right, so it put it in there required that. And also that they shouldn't receive any

special state or federal tax breaks. Because this is the key because of the zero interest rates

and the federal reserve. And you know all this stuff that is juiced up the NAG 7 and then all

their adjacent companies, valuations, they have a degree of market share that frankly,

a free economy without the COVID economy wouldn't have created.

And so then yeah, they come in like you said, they could offer, they have their flush with cash,

they could offer a bunch of money. But a lot of it is because of government policy. So a farmer

rancher, they have to pay sales tax on all of their equipment. They want to say these guys

shouldn't have to pay sales tax for 30 years on anything they do. So that's that's very unnatural.

And I just feel like I guess my question to you is at some point, don't we have to balance out

broad organic homegrown business growth versus this at-a-state multinational corporate

very targeted special interest to just juice up the GDP very superficially?

Absolutely, just like the decisions that I'm forced to make on the CLO, we're not comparing apples

to apples if one industry is getting a huge subsidy from the federal government and they can

manipulate what the real rates they're paying are. If they're being subsidized,

they're not paying the same rate that somebody else is paying. And when it comes to organic growth,

especially in our rural areas, Daniel, you know I'm from a rural community. That's very important to

me. The solutions to growing our areas will come from our own communities. It's not going to be

this infusion of ideas pushed down from the federal government into our rural Oklahoma areas.

It is going to have to come from within. And if we start investing within in our resources,

creating the pipelines that we need for the workforce, that's whenever we will organically grow and

become the state we were meant to be. No, that's that's very well said because I think if you look at

Florida as the example, everyone's talking about the prosperity of Florida. No one can name very

interestingly one industry that dominates the state. What is the face of the post-COVID growth in

Florida? There really is none. It was that the governor created a desirable economic and cultural

crime rates quality of life that a lot of wealthy people business owners came down and it's just

a wealthy happening state. There's no one, it's not the data center, the Boeing, this, you know,

any one industry, I feel like some of your Republican colleagues in Oklahoma feel like you can get

at this moonshot, find one industry and tilt everything to that and then you'll have a bunch

of prosperity. I mean, is that sort of the divide there? Yes, yes, that is the divide.

Yeah, well, I mean, these are two very different visions that I think it's hard to bridge.

Well, anyway, I really wish you luck on running. I'm glad that I'm thankful for what you've

done as auditor, but you know, there's exposing, but then you reach the time where he got to implement.

And I think a lot of my colleagues like exposing the left, but then we've never actually changed

anything. So I'm glad that you have this urge to change its key. Can you just explain before you

go real briefly? We're almost at a time. What is it for those not familiar with a state that

has a more robust office of lieutenant governor? What sort of influence you could have on legislation?

Well, right now in the state of Oklahoma, our lieutenant governor sets on boards and commissions

that make and he makes decisions concerning billions of taxpayer dollars. And it's for the purpose

of driving economic success. The lieutenant governor has a blank slate with a loud platform.

And my platform is going to be reform. It is going to be helping to address these issues

of, you know, burdening entitlement programs that are keeping our citizens from just being able

to live life free of government intrusion. And we have got to get that turned around. That is a focus

I have. And you know, just like you said, I've spent years reporting this. And I'm very surprised

that we've had a little reform based on what I've reported that sometimes I think that the

solutions to these things are not hard. They're not expensive. It's just wanting to dig in and

spend the time to fix it. And that's what we need more of in government, rather than just the

talking heads. Spending time, but I would also argue it's also the willingness to punch forward

when you're met with adversity from the special interests because there's a reason this stuff

isn't done. It's not just the time. And I think what you've demonstrated in your time in office

is that you're willing to expose special interests. And I think this is what a lot of people

don't understand in primaries. It's not so much how conservative you are. I mean, a lot of people

are theoretically conservative. They'll maybe go to Bible study and they'll live, you know,

some don't. But the ones that do live a conservative lifestyle. But are you willing to punch

through that adversity of special interests that often dominate small states like Oklahoma,

even more than the larger states. And I think that's where red states meet their match with

conservatism when it comes to that special interest. So again, Cindy Bird.com is where to check it out.

We really look forward to hearing more from you and good luck on your race.

Thank you, Daniel. God bless. Take care. So folks, again, that was Cindy Bird, the state auditor

inspector of Oklahoma. There's a number of interesting things about her, if you've noticed.

She is literally the antithesis of everything you have in this world and in the political world

on the right. Whereas all these guys, you know, speak loudly and carry a white flag, she is a very

soft-spoken person. Doesn't make waves in terms of political statements, but uses her office to the

maximum. Now, the auditor is just an investigative office. It doesn't have legislative authority,

although she is part of this other, you know, OCL I talked about with land use. And she has quietly been

often the only vote. You know, you have Kevin Stitt, who's obsessed with the data centers.

And she votes, no, you don't understand. I don't think you guys understand how big of a deal that is.

There's very few people willing to do that. So when we look broadly at this false choice of

you're either this like GOP bootlicker, a special interest bootlicker, all Trump all the time and

no policy, no anything. Or on the other end of the spectrum, you have these grippers and they

talk about the Jews all day and they're making waves on podcasts and social media.

Oh, you're all Daniel. It's just like we got to pick. Well, actually not. Actually, we have proof

of concept. We have people like Jim Shaw and Cindy Bird in Oklahoma. We have people like Andrew

Ireland. We had on yesterday in Indiana. We have Brian Harrison in Texas. Brian is on social media a

lot, but he also is doing a lot and making changes in the state. This could be done. But we don't

even have fiscal conservatives anymore. And she's a full spectrum conservative. We don't have them

that understand what health care ought to look like. That you can't just ignore the Medicaid program.

Like it's all good. She has done what nobody has. She has hands down the best auditor in America.

Now we just got plays in Goliath in Florida. And he got in there. It's a little different, slightly

different position, CFO, but it's kind of overlapping. You know, so some of your states might have a

CFO, some might have an auditor, some might have a treasure. These are all good positions.

Like I know this sounds corny. Forget about governor. I mean, that's really important.

Lieutenant governor in a state like Oklahoma, not all states like the eastern states,

northeast. It's not really important. Attorney General, Secretary of State. And yes,

even auditor or treasure. That is more important than Congress and even US Senate.

You're not going to do anything there. This is where we need to build our bench, state legislature,

county, even, and then the statewide elected offices. But it's people like Cindy that get no,

no, um, attention. She does have an opponent who is the typical special interest guy, but he'll be

like, I'm all about Jesus and Trump, Jesus and Trump. And it's just all talk, no action.

We'll never, ever fight this special interest that Cindy has. So if you're in Oklahoma, I cannot

give over to you. Not much Cindy has my confidence and support for Lieutenant governor. And you know

that's pretty hard to get. She is the real deal. Like every fiber of her being is doing the right

thing. Imagine if we had a party built upon people like that, sincerity of purpose,

consistency of articulation and thought. Imagine what our vote tally with the white suburban

voter would look like, you know, electing someone like that. Imagine. By the way, I do apologize

for some of the technical problems there. You know, mainly it went through a little bit cut out.

I seem to have this with people who come on from the state capitals. I don't know what's with

their internet. We had that in West Virginia too. But anyway, this is what we need. And yes,

like you can't have a narrative on affordability if you don't go after this. And I do believe

that the recent fraud stuff does give us that opening. And so I'm glad to highlight people like

this. These people do exist. They just don't get the support and focus from the con ink noise machine.

The people that actually do what these people flatulate about, they don't get the support. And the

people who subvert it do. So for one, I'm going to try to promote those people where I can,

you know, I know some of this is going to be a little bit parochial. But all the issues we

spoke about, whether it's the data centers, the land use, the organic versus contrived economic

development, and then obviously Medicaid and federal grant programs. This is the story of every

red state. And the difference between a Cindy Bird and a Kevin's did is greater than the

difference between any R&D. That's the difference between a dissentist conservative and just some

sort of pay for play loser Republican that doesn't stand for anything. Let me know your comments,

questions and concerns. Daniel Hurwitz at startmail.com. Like and subscribe as always at

Hurwitz show on YouTube and give us a five-star rating on iTunes. Until tomorrow, God bless you all.

And thank you for listening.