Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-27-26_FRIDAY_6AM

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

The morning news and catch up, OK Olake talks about the new WAR ON WASTE AND FRAUD. Olake is CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF).

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. Great to have you here on Find Your Phone Friday, 7705-633. It's 12 minutes after six. We have a different guest. I've never talked to OJ. Olika.

And he's an individual. Well, actually, what he is is the CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation. and they're going to be making more news in the near future because President Trump had that executive order in which we're going to have this war on fraud, war on fraud within government. And there are some that have opined that they think that maybe 10 to 20 percent of government funding or government spending is just fraudulent. And you think about what happened with the Somalis over in Minneapolis, that sort of situation, that there's a lot more of that going on than you think. And I'm hoping OJ can bring a little clarity to this because I always get concerned any time you have any president. Yes, even President Trump saying we're going to do a war on and then, you know, whatever you insert. Because usually it means that there's, you know, another big government bureaucracy that is created and it never goes away.

And the problem never goes away. You know, that sort of thing too, like war on drugs. President Nixon, you know, doing that back in the day. and I don't know, looking at the raved lunatic, the homelessness. I don't think we've... Now, of course, this is Oregon. There are other places that actually do a better job of keeping their people off of illicit drugs than Oregon. But still, you kind of get what I'm getting at here, where I'm coming from.

All right, the TSA lines could be starting to break up. There was a midnight deal. Actually, it happened about 11 o'clock our time last night, which the Senate voted unanimously just a few people. on the floor, but they ended up sending it there. And so it'll reopen. It would reopen the closed parts of the government, which means the TSA workers would be getting their paychecks,

and that should end the chaos that we've been having in some of these airports. And really what triggered this is that President Trump gave the executive order last night that he was going to go it alone, and he gave an emergency order. And I think what he was going to do is move some other Homeland Security funding and just move it to TSA and pay the work. workers for the time being. But then the Senate got involved. The bill is going to the House sometime this morning. Later this morning, they're going to have to take a vote on it. And so

it'll be up to, it'll be up to the House, really, at this point. And I would imagine, I imagine it's going to pass. Here's the deal, though. Looks like John Thune had to throw a bone to Chuck E Schumer. And so part of the deal is that there's going to be no ice or Border Patrol funding in this particular appropriation, right? This would be just going to TSA and other places like that. Now, Foon is saying that this is going to be a temporary win, just temporary, because intimating that he's going to go to what they call reconciliation, which would be a much easier budget to pass.

So that's what he's talking about right now. I still get this impression that John Thune is trying his best to make sure that he's in the minority this November. just my opinion. I don't know if you have an opinion on one way or the other. What is concerned me is that you see the same kind of actions in Republicans in Washington, D.C., as you will see in what we will decry as, you know, rock-ripped Republicans in the Oregon State Legislature. Now you have a handful of the conservative ones that are real serious, you know, the Noah Robinsons and the, and the Dwayne Yunkers, you know, those type of people say, well, heck yeah, I'll deny, quorum or something? Well, usually the way

this works is that, as an example, denying quorum, remember a few years ago after Herman was so successful with his denial of quorum on the fuel taxes, etc. You know, that kind of, the carbon tax, that's what he was fighting against at that time,

right? And so that's all good. The governor did it with executive orders anyway, but still, it was a win. It was a win. And then Republicans said, well, you know, gosh, if we walk out anymore, if we do a whole lot more of this, then the Democrats are going to make it illegal to deny quorum. Well, it's not

illegal to deny quorum, but they did that. They shoved Measure 113. And the voters stupidly went to it because it was sold by the Democrats and not even opposed by the Republicans. They didn't put anything in the voters' pamphlet or anything about it. But it was just one of those things. So those

Republicans, those walk-outers, need to do their job, even though doing their job was representing their people and protecting using the only tool they had. denial of quorum. That's how that was working. And so, and this was after Republicans were saying, we can't walk out because then they'll do this. And then they did it anyway. And, and, and so that kind of conversation continues in the U.S. Senate. In the U.S. Senate, well, you know, we can't get rid of the filibuster. If we get rid of the filibuster, then the Democrats will use that against us.

Except that the Democrats are on the record as saying that, hey, when we get back in power, when we get control, we're going to get rid of the filibuster. You know, 51 votes, boom, we get what we want. And it's the same kind of attitude. Well, you know, we have to protect the traditions here. You know, we can't get too rough on people because otherwise they'll get rough on us. I assure you they're going to get rough on you anyway. So you might as well kill them legislatively while you can and get some policy going.

These Louise, it just makes, well, once again, as I love Eric's term, makes your teeth hurt. That's kind of the way it goes. So nobody really wins, but, yeah, this was a bone with a thoon, with a thoon tossing a bone to Chuckie Schumer, because I guess, you know, the Senate, the cooling saucer, you know, you have to give your colleagues, or all the collegiate group here in the Senate, unlike the rabble, the rebel scum over in the Congress and the House, right?

That kind of thing. So we'll see where this goes, what the House does. So the nightmare is over, I guess, here pretty soon. You know, we're talking about those unconfirmed reports of shootings yesterday and Grants Pass ends up. It was definitely for real. And they ended up arresting a 21-year-old suspect, Kyle Talbot. He's in Josephine County Lockup here. And no bail, by the way, Judge said, no way, are we letting you out?

And we have an 18-year-old man dead. 24-year-old man is badly hurt in the hospital. Grants Pass shopping centers where that happened. Little after 6.6. o'clock on Wednesday night. And we don't know what actually led to this at this point. Some kind of disturbance. We don't know.

Things are still, details are still a little thin here. The former CEO of the Builders Association, Brad Bennington, he had his first court appearance yesterday. And I was staying in touch with him. You know, Brad's not going to talk about the case because, you know, his attorney says, hey, shut up, even though he would call the radio station quite a bit over the years. He was a frequent caller on the show. But he plated not guilty to all the charges yesterday that alleged, accused of embezzling around $100,000 from the Builders Association.

And what Brad was complaining to me, not complaining, well, you know, it was just telling me up to this point that he knew this was all coming, that there was the investigation that had been announced, et cetera, and yet you have all this time, you're just waiting to hang fire, and you don't know what the evidence is. They don't tell you what the evidence is. Well, his attorney ended up filing yesterday to demand discovery. So finally, Brad will get a chance to see what everybody else thinks they have on him and all the evidence.

And so, and I've been very clear about this. It doesn't sound like the Brad Bennington that I've known. and talked to and interviewed about Builders' issues and such over the years. But I don't know. I'm not going to be on the jury. I haven't seen the evidence, but I guess Brad will see the evidence too. And I think he has it in my news here. Yeah, May 18th, a little later in May is when there's going to be the preliminary pre-trial hearings, all that kind of stuff.

And we're going to have an O'Kings rally tomorrow. You know, that's going to be happening. In fact, and someone write me overnight on the website, KMED.com website and saying, hey, is there going to be a pro-Trump rally? And I don't think there's absolutely, well, you can tell me if you think you're, if I'm wrong about this.

I don't think there's anything to be gained by going out there when you have the progressive communist world here in the state of Oregon wrestling like a dirty pig out on the streets. There's no point in getting into a wrestling match with them. You're not going to make any changes to it. And all the pig's going to do is get you muddy, right? It's kind of a muddy pig. The no-kings rally is what's going to be going on.

So, no, I don't think there are any pro-President Trump rallies per se. And I wouldn't necessarily recommend that you do just go out there to combat it. You know, let them gas off and have their thing. But what we are doing is that I'm going to be over at the Southern Oregon Patriots Convention, over in Josephine County, starts at 9 o'clock, over at Josephine. Avine County Fairgrounds. 9 o'clock in the morning runs till 5, all sorts of speakers, including, well, I'm going to kick it off,

talking about media sources and ones that I tend to like to follow and take a look at. And also wanted to detail the challenges that we have in getting good news here in the state of Oregon and who's really pushing out the news and the narrative. And it's not necessarily what we're thinking out there. Ultimately, some of the research that I've been looking at has been that nonprofit foundations are driving the news cycle

because of the way they donate mostly to OPB. He was doing some research on this, and it's fascinating to look at who's actually paying for the news that you get in enforcing the safe and effective, the kind of narrative, and the transgender, this, and the progressive that. And a lot of it coming through progressive left-wing foundations that are right-in-hot checks to the news media. And especially as the news media is starting to turn into more of a non-profit world. I mean, the amount of people doing journalism and news media here in the state of Oregon is just plummeted.

It's just like everybody else, everywhere else over the weekend. But anyway, I'm going to talk about that at tomorrow's Patriot Conference. That's what I'm going to be focusing on in my section. But Gregory Wrightstone, I think, is going to be on right after me. Gregory Wrightstone. and he was the former head of the CO2 coalition, but the vice president just became the president, and he's now going to be a fellow or a senior fellow at that.

So he's going to be concentrating on his presentations, and he'll be doing a presentation there at the Patriots conference on the CO2 Malarkey, as Biden would have said, hey, it's Malarkey, yeah, you hooligans. He'll be in town doing that. Actually, he's going to be in town tonight, too. If you wanted to see Gregory Wrightstone, he'll be over at Rogue X, 5 o'clock. Free presentation.

You can check that out. So you can go see him tonight at Rogue X. You can see him tomorrow morning, probably around 10 or so. I'll be going on at about 9.15. But a good day at the Southern Oregon Patriots Conference. You can get tickets either at the door or get them at the Josephine County Republican Party office, which is right across the street from the courthouse, where they do the county commission meetings,

and that's also where I would imagine the No Kings Commies are going to be out there having their hissy fit. You know, you have to go out there. If it's about President Trump, they'll be protesting it. So just gird your loins. Just know that it's coming. And why don't you just come to the Patriots Conference instead? All right?

I just think that would be a much more enjoyable event rather than trying to counter no kings, okay? 24 after 6, this is the Bill Meyers show. Everyone should be able to grow older with respect. Hi, I'm Riley with Rotary Drilling Company, and I'm on KMED. 77056633, 770 KMED to join the program on Find Your Phone Friday. President Trump in the Wall Street Journal say that he agrees to leave the high-value targets intact in Iran while negotiations are taking place. pausing for another 10 days.

Another 10 days so before they start bombing the more of the oil and gas infrastructure. I'll talk more about what might be driving that here. In just a minute, I was reading a fascinating substack, and I still haven't had time to digest all of its implications, but there's something big going on in the oil markets that has not been really talked much about here. We go back to the phones here. Hi, KMED-E, good morning.

Who's this? Yeah, good morning, Bill. It's Terry. Hey, Terry, what's on your mind today, huh? And you say you're going to talk about the media tonight and how, you know, Oregon or something, or something good, certainly to some stuff. Right.

And what do you think about that guy, David Ellison, how he's fought out supposedly Warner Brothers slash Discovery? And it's supposedly, you know, pro-Trump. What do you think that's going to do to CNN? I have no idea. I really can't say, you know, it may bend, well, I've already noticed that, frankly, a little bit more of a,

of a centrist bent to CNN, even before that buyout, haven't you? At least I've noticed a little bit of a change. You know, they have that one guy, Scott, one at Jennings or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, they put more conservative slash Republicans on there, yeah. I would be happy with CNN if it just wasn't, you know, it just wasn't openly hostile to everything from the right. That would be fine, you know.

Well, my other question is, and I know that we keep talking about mainstream media, CNN, all those things. you know, they've lost a ton of audience. I mean, how much poll do you think they really have with all the alternative media out there? I mean, are they really that relevant or are they irrelevant? Well, let me put it this way. To the people who, I guess you would say, are the Democratic foot soldiers. Yeah, I call them fan boys.

Yeah, they still have the, they still have the sway. By the way, and I know you may not believe this, you may have trouble believing this, But ABC News, you know, the David Muir, I believe that's the number one rated newscast still in the United States of America, more eyeballs. And yet, you know, around here, you know, here on the right wing side of things will say, oh, yeah, Jesse Waters, he's doing this and that, the other. The numbers from the cable news teams and things like that are still being dwarfed, dwarfed by the national news. Now, granted, they're not 24-7. You know, they're only, you know, daily reports and things like that, but still more people. A lot of people get their news from the so-called mainstream still, even today.

They really do. I was just curious on that, how much have gone to alternative, which I don't know how great they count that. Or like you say, cable news or network news. Yeah, they're still a pretty good influence. Now it's not like it was. You know, it's not the days of Walter Cronkite when I was like growing up or the Huntley and Brinkley reports and things like that. We don't have that. There are more options.

And I'm going to be talking about that because in the state of Oregon and, What my research has been delving into is just you wonder, you know, who's really controlling the narrative in the state of Oregon. And when you have, when you look at it deeply, it's really Oregon Public Broadcasting. Oregon Public Broadcasting is really the mothership. And, of course, the subset of that would be Jefferson Public Radio and Eugene Public Radio, et cetera. It's that sort of thing. And a lot of it, now, Corporation for Public Broadcasting closed earlier. this year, right? It was defunded by Congress.

Sure. And so that took 30% of OPB's budget out, if I recall, and I'm going to talk more about this tomorrow. But what's fascinating about that all is how what's likely going to take

the place of it is not listeners like you. You know how they always put that in the PBS sort of thing? And it's brought to you by blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And listeners like you, it's likely not going to be coming from listeners and or viewers as much as it is more of the left-wing progressive nonprofit rackets that tend to already donate to such places. They're going to be stepping up because they've tended to be able, in my opinion, by very

soft treatment in Oregon public broadcasting. And, you know, that's where we ended up having Oregon Health Authority being able to run roughshod over us and screaming, you know, safe and effective. take your shot, you know, all that kind of stuff. Because we have a lot of medical, a lot of medical like Kaiser Permanente, big money going into places like OPB and such. And like I said, I'll have more discussion on that tomorrow at the conference. Okay. Well, thanks, Bill. Happy Friday.

All right. Happy Friday to you, too. Let me go to line two. Hi, KM.D. Good morning. Who's this? Good morning, Bill. Happy Friday. David and Phoenix.

Sunshine, David. Give me a quick one before news. Let's hear it. All right. This is the people's opportunity after what happened in Medford. Please somehow understand to vote no on the RVTD on the levy. Save yourself an average of around $260 a year that you can use doing something else, except giving it to the bum hauler.

So it's coming up on the 19th, if people don't vote to let that expire, this is a sunset law, then what am I listening to everybody complaining about their taxes for? Here's something that they have a chance to do something about it. Well, I guess the question is, will there be enough people that pay attention and understand it, or will they look at it that we need the bum hauler, as you call it? But that's not my responsibility. That's theirs. So I'm sorry, if Americans are too stupid for America, oh, well, that's how it goes.

There you go. Appreciate the call. Thank you, Sunshine, David, 632. KMED. It's Shopping Day at Bill Myers Show on 1063KMED. 637. President Trump recently issued an executive order. Talked about this in the State of the Union, too,

to eradicate waste and fraud around the nation. I love the sound of that. So it's a war on waste and fraud. What does that really mean, though? The devil's in the details, right? And OJ. O'J. O'Laka is here to tell me more about this. OJ. is the CEO of the state financial office. Officers Foundation. Hello, OJ. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Bill. It's good to be with you. Tell me a little bit about what this is all about. I know you're on Fox Business the other day talking about this and having a good time from the sounds of it. What you say? Well, we did have a good time talking about it, but unfortunately it is a bad time that the American people are having with regard to how their money is being spent. The war on fraud is very simple. It is finding the folks in this country who are taking advantage of our system of benefits, our system of opportunities, in spending taxpayer money in the wrong way. Our state financial officers have said, no more. It's their job as treasurers, auditors, and comptrollers all across the country to make sure your money is being spent well,

and they're doing it every single day. So how is the process or what is the process of the war on fraud? Do we have any details at this point, or is this just the president saying, all right, I'm writing, here's the order, and then at the state level, you're going to have to do it, or whether there will be a new set of rules or regulations to perhaps dig more deeply into where the money's going? Well, there are a couple things afoot, Bill, on that front. It was reported the vice president is convening the war on fraud task force today, as a matter of fact, to start going through some of those details. So we will hear more from him and his team, I'm assuming, here in the next few weeks.

weeks in months about the exact process that the federal government is going to take, and we want to walk with them every step of the way. Now, what we're doing at the state level is something our state financial officers have been doing for a while, and that's finding the waste fraud and abuse across the state. It was just last year, 2025, our state financial officers safeguarded $28 billion of taxpayer money. Six billion of that was fraud that they stopped. A lot of it was in federal programs, which is why we are reaching out to the vice president. We're reaching out to the task force to say, put our folks in the game. They're already on the ground doing it. You don't need to deploy new resources. Get our folks who are already elected by their people to handle this

issue because they can do it really well. All right. Who are the officers that usually take care of that in a state? I know that in Oregon, the secretary of state is the one in charge of doing audits? Is this mostly where you end up finding the fraud in waste or other other ways about that? It depends on the office in the state. Oftentimes it's the state treasurer who does it on the front end. They make sure that there's good verification, that there's eligibility requirements and there's transparency so that you as the taxpayer can see where money is going on the front end and it's going to the right places constitutionally and so forth. On the back end, you got the state auditor or in Oregon's case, the Secretary of State. You have the state auditor who has a responsibility

to actually audit, to actually investigate, and to make sure that the money where it was supposed to go actually went there. Our state financial officers are good conservatives who've been tackling this issue from day one, and they're going to keep doing it. Oh, okay, so the SFOF, you know, your group, State Financial Officers Foundation, is more of a conservatives. In other words, our Oregon people aren't belonging to you. I guess it's one on hearing, right? Well, I'll say it this way. We certainly would welcome anybody who focuses on waste, fraud, and abuse. We are a nonpartisan organization.

But you're right. We have folks who are conservative in their belief that government should spend money as little as possible, and when it does, it should be efficient. And the reason for that is because, obviously, we know people can spend their hard-earned money better than any government can. And when it gets in the hands of government, that creates the opportunity for more fraud, which then you've got basically good money chasing after bad, because folks still need to get the benefits that they need. And as a result, you've got tax and spend politicians who just take more of your money,

which then creates this affordability issue that so many people are concerned about. Would you say, I don't know if you could make this statement or not here, OJ, but do you believe that there is a difference in the way they approach the nuts and bolts of the budgeting when you are a conservative state financial officer versus a more progressive state financial officer? Is there any difference or do you all go kind of come out of the same schools with the same kind of attitude, you know, toward the job? Anything? It is, there is absolutely a difference because when you're conservative, your first question that you ask is, is this constitutional? Could we even be doing this based on how government in our country and then in the state was designed?

And then secondarily, you ask the question, should the private sector do it because they could do it better? And then if you ultimately get to, well, this is constitutional, this is a function of good government, then you try to figure out how you can be most efficient. And that's why the treasurers on the front end are so important because they see the money. They know exactly where dollars are supposed to go. They're in charge of the checkbook. So if they can be a little tighter on the pennies, then you can have a little bit more in your pocket. And then, of course, the auditors on the back end make sure that you're not overspending in contracts

or you're not overspending in improper payments to make sure that you're not overspending in improper payments to make sure that you, again, as the taxpayer, keep your money. That's a conservative mentality. That's the type of leadership that states needs all across the country. And that's the leadership that we want to bring to the vice president and the fraud task force to help the American people. Over in the State Financial Officers Foundation, OJ. Olika, is the CEO of that. And I kind of curious, do you guys look and point and laugh at states like Oregon? Or is that?

Well, what we do, and I'm from Kentucky. So there's a phrase that we often use. We say, bless their heart. Because it really is a shame that you've got leadership in different states who just don't take this issue seriously. I mean, look at Minnesota as a prime example. Yeah, I wanted to know. I wanted to ask you, since you are knee-deep in how that stuff happens, how did that occur? I mean, you know, what it looks like to be billions of dollars in waste and just out and out fraud going to Somali.

How do that, or Somalians, rather, how did that happen? Well, I'll tell you, it was a short-sided decision that state leadership made in the late 90s. They eliminated the treasurer's office in 1998. And this is a conversation that comes up. People say, well, we should get rid of the treasurer's office. It costs too much money. They saved a million dollars doing that, Bill. But as you pointed out, some 20, 30 years later, now they're allegedly losing billions of dollars

because there's now nobody who is elected, who has the political incentive, who has the policy authority to actually stop this stuff from happening. So as a result, you've got the situation you have in Minnesota, and I believe it is happening all across the country, either because you've got elected officials who don't have the courage, or you have elected officials who don't have the power, or offices that don't exist to work on behalf of the American people. That's a problem. We need to keep treasurer's offices, keep auditor's offices strong so that they can work for the American people. Do you think that it's better to have elected financial officers or should be sure they be appointed by the political class?

Some states do it differently. They should be elected by the people. Why is that? Some states do it differently. They should be elected by the people because then they are accountable to the people. Instead of having a conversation with a governor or an attorney general years later and from the oversight committee where they hide behind lawyers and hide behind staff, which is what we saw with Tim Walls and Keith Ellison a few weeks ago, you actually have an elected treasurer. who then can be talked to by their own constituents. And they have to answer the question, how did you let this happen?

That person gets booted out of office. Now, what happens before then, or ideally with the next treasurer, is that they're now politically attuned and politically aware of these issues, and so they act better. We're seeing it all across the country. You've got folks running now for election who are saying they want to doge their state. They want to get rid of the waste and fraud and abuse. This is because they see the political opportunity to do the right thing.

And those are the types of leaders that when they win, we want to support them. OJ, if you were to put a number on it or a percentage, is there any way to figure out, like on average, that they've gone through various states, different states? How much waste and fraud is a percentage of spending? Is there any way to break that down? I've seen people that have opined on it, but has anyone ever really looked under the hood and tried to figure out how much of it goes bad in most states? Yes, the government accountability office, which is a federal organization, has stated that it could be up to 10% of federal spending or perhaps $500 billion to put a round number and an average on it.

In federal spending, that is fraudulent. So that's one level of things. And again, that's significant because if you think if you can stop that, $500 billion a year, over 10 years, that's $5 trillion. That's real money that you can actually use to put down to low. lower the debt that you can actually give back to the American people and you can stimulate the economy by actually having people spend their own money. That's one level. The second level is at the state. And that varies by the things that we were talking about before. You see that the large number in Minnesota, which in some estimates, if you have that $9 billion, that could be up to 16%

of their state budget. I don't know if it's that high. I don't know if it's that high in every other state, but you can see how this can accumulate really, really quickly. And that's just wasted money and that needs to stop. Back when the federal government was uncritically writing hot checks to the state, and that seems to be quite a bit different now, was there sort of a look the other way kind of thing? It's like, yeah, we know that there's a certain amount of bad actors involved here, but that's okay.

The Fed keeps writing the hot checks and everybody's happy, or is it just something that just happens due to, well, not caring in general or being incompetent or maybe in on the fraud? I don't know. What do you think? Well, I think it could potentially be all of those things. And that's why it's important to break down the differences between waste and fraud and abuse. Fraud, obviously, is something illegal.

That's very clear. You take money and you spend it for something it wasn't intended for. That's fraud. There could be some of that that was happening with folks in the federal government, in cahoots with people in the state government. We don't know, but I think it's important to do the investigation there. Waste is something where, as you pointed out, it could just be negligence. are a state employee and you aren't checking the contracts.

So you overpay on a contract that was renegotiated down. Or you pay someone's salary who retired five years ago and you just never took them off the rolls. That's waste. Abuse is when you have someone use a legal system to get kickbacks. So for example, if I give money to a candidate running for governor and I happen to run a marketing agency and this candidate for governor wins. And then six months into their term, I get a call from the procurement office that says,

congratulations, your marketing firm now has a $5 million contract with the state. That's the sort of stuff that goes on in Oregon. That happens in Oregon. There have been scandals over that quite a bit. That's nothing unusual. That's kind of the way it goes. Well, you know, you're hiring your friends, so to speak, right? Well, and that is abuse, textbook abuse of the system.

Because if you go through the legal means, then it's not technically fraud. And if you can't actually trace back the campaign contribution to that contract, then there's a difficult way to prove it. Yeah, there's no direct quid. There's no direct quid pro quo, right? There's nothing that ties it. But we all know what it looks like, right? It's kind of like you know what it looks like when you see it, even if you can't necessarily prove it. That's kind of what you're saying, isn't it, OJ?

That's exactly what I'm saying. And then the politicians will say, don't believe you're lying eyes. But again, we know the truth. and that's why our state financial officers want to stop it, because that is a waste of your money as a taxpayer. That's something that you could spend on groceries. You could spend on your kids' soccer team. That's something you could spend to get a new gift for your wife. Way better spent than the government taking it from you, throwing it away.

All right. So your state financial officers foundation is going to be working quite closely then with J.D. Vance. I'm looking forward to finding out. Are you actually in the room with him on this? or do you kind of like do the Supreme Court version of the amicus briefs where you write them letters and you say, hey, JD, this is something you might want to look at? What is your relationship then with the White House group? Well, we have no formal relationship at this point. I am actually in Washington, D.C., as we speak, meeting with folks on this issue. So certainly more to come. But what we say to the vice president and to Congress and to anybody else, we want to work with you to do the right thing.

We think that this president is doing a fantastic job. And listen to this, Bill. Here's my thought. If the president and the vice president are able to find and root out all the fraud that exist in this country, I think they'll go down as having achieved one of the greatest domestic achievements in the modern presidency. This is a real structural issue where we have seen that fraud is a feature in the system, not a bug. So if the president and the vice president can stop it, I think that will be a tremendous thing they've done for the American people. And to your point, you have released a brand new oversight report.

Could you tell us about that and how people can get a copy of it? Yep. You can go to our website, sFOF.com, to check out the oversight report, which tells you exactly what our state financial officers have been up to regarding protecting your taxpayer dollars. $28 billion they safeguarded in 2025, and they're already doing more this year. That's 41 state financial officers in $28 billion. 28 states who are responsible for $1.5 trillion of assets under management. They care about your taxpayer dollars.

They're protecting every single one that comes in through their office. Go to sFOF.com to see the report and provide tips on where you think fraud is happening in your state so we can get our folks on it to stop it. All right. Now, you say it's mostly conservatives in the state financial officers foundation. So would you take our so-called, and I put in scary air quotes, the progressives, the Tobias Reeds of the world, would you take those people in there? Would you talk to them, try to help them see the way? We would certainly have a conversation with anyone who is serious and has a track record of being serious about stopping waste, fraud, and abuse in their state. We have a set of principles that we believe in. We believe in federalism, the rule of law, free markets, free speech, a civil society and civil discourse.

If those things interest you, we would love to have a conversation to see how you can better impact your state. That's interesting. The Secretary of State who does the audits is Tobias Reid. He's actually the former state treasurer. So, you know, he's been on both sides of that. It could be interesting. I might just write the office and say, hey, Tobias, if you thought about joining this group, you might learn a thing or two. I'll get back to you on that, OJ.

All right. I appreciate the call. Good talking with you. Thanks, Bill. OJ. Bye-bye. OJ. Olika. He's the CEO of the State Financial Officers Foundation. This is the Bill Meyer Show.